Rehydration of Air-Dried Smears with Normal Saline: An Alternative for Conventional Wet Fixation Method in Cervical Cytological Study.

Context: Papanicolaou (Pap) smear is an effective exfoliative cytological investigation done for early recognition of cervical cancer. It also plays role in diagnosis of inflammatory lesions of cervix.

Aims: The aim of this study is (1) to compare the cytomorphological features in conventional Pap smear (C-PAPS) and rehydrated air-dried Pap smear (RADPS) and (2) to evaluate the efficacy of RADPS in cytodiagnosis of cervical lesion by comparing with cytomorphological features of conventional wet-fixed Pap smear.