A simple clinical method for the preparation of improved cervical smears-approximating to monolayers.

Conventionally prepared cervical smears contain multilayers of cells deposited within strands of mucin. The present study is concerned with chemical reduction of disulphide bonds in the mucin leading to depolymerisation prior to forming a smear in the conventional manner. The resultant distribution of cells on the slide is similar to that obtained by machines designed to produce monolayers of cells. These monolayers have been developed for use in automated analysis of cervical smears and sputum samples. This new technique does not interfere with conventional PAP analysis of dyskaryotic cells nor does it interfere with the fluorescent location of such cells of cytological interest.