The significance of documenting clinical appearance of the uterine cervix in the cervical cytology form.

Objective: To determine whether or not the Pap smear taker is reporting the clinical appearance of the cervix on the cytology request form, and if cytologist / smear taker are giving any importance to this information prior to issuing advice on subsequent follow-up. Finally, to evaluate the clinicians' response to normal Pap smear report in the absence of the clinical comment on the cervix.

Methods: A retrospective study, for a total of 1196 random smear results performed between 1999 and 2000 at King Fahad National Guard Hospital, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with its relevant charts were evaluated.