Human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence and associated risk factors in women from Curaçao.

Background: In the Caribbean region, a notable difference in HPV-prevalence and genotypes distribution between the islands is observed. Recently we found in Curaçao a low incidence of HPV16 and 18 in cervical cancer compared to the standard world population. We aimed to determine HPV-prevalence, HPV-genotype distribution and associated risk-factors in women from Curaçao.

Diagnostic efficacy of endometrial cytology with the Abradul cell sampler supplemented by laser scanning confocal microscopy.

Objective: To study the diagnostic efficacy of endometrial cytology with the Abradul cell sampler and the effect of supplementing it, in cases with overly thick smears, with laser scanning confocal microscopy.

Study Design: Sampling was performed in 1,684 women. All patients underwent subsequent histology.

Confocal microscopy of false-negative breast aspirates.

Even when using a novel optimized FNA-21 for breast fine-needle aspiration biopsy, our series of 163 breast lesions with consecutive histology, including 110 carcinomas, contained eight cancer cases with a negative cytologic diagnosis. Two consisted exclusively of thick, undiagnosable epithelial fragments and were devoid of detached malignant cells on which the proper diagnosis could have been made. Optical sectioning of the original smears by the confocal microscope allowed us to reclaim from these epithelial fragments the diagnostic abnormal chromatin patterns, even in the air-dried smears.

Confocal optical sectioning and three-dimensional reconstruction of carcinoma fragments in Pap smears using sophisticated image data processing.

Carcinoma fragments found in Pap smears contain important diagnostic information not available to the light microscopist because of their thickness and consequent blurring. Optical sectioning by the confocal microscope allows us to reclaim the mitotic figures, glandular architecture, and abnormal chromatin patterns in the restained original smears. The high spatial resolution of the confocal microscope can be further exploited by processing the digital images with the sophisticated Application Visualization System (AVS) on a CONVEX computer.