Experience in mass Papanicolaou screening and cytologic observations of teen-age girls.

This report is based on a seven-year retrospective analysis of computerized data available from the Chicago Board of Health's Cancer Control Section and its Cytology Laboratory. All patients included were medically indigent. The cytologic specimens were obtained by the VCE technique; all Papanicolaou smears were classified with both the numerical and descriptive systems for abnormal cytology. The study cohort was composed of 33,641 teen-age patients through age 19; 58 (1.7/1,000) had abnormal cytology (Class III, IV, or V). In Chicago, from 1962 through 1969, approximately 25 per cent of the total patient load were teen-agers under the age of 19 with an extremely low yield of suspect cytology: Class III = 1.6 per month; Class IV = 0.1 per month; Class V = 0.0 per month. The Chicago Board of Health has reduced the number of Papanicolaou smears taken on young women under the age of 19; however, this conceptual approach does not exclude women under age 19 who epidemiologically and/or clinically warrant the implementation of a Papanicolaou smear with the use of Friedell's "biologic age of the cervix" formula.