Objective: Cervicography was evaluated as a primary screening method for cervical cancer.
Study design: Cervigrams of 8460 women were taken on enrollment into a population-based study of cervical neoplasia. Cervicography results were compared with a referent diagnosis determined by histologic analysis and 3 cytologic tests, and with the performance of conventional cytologic evaluation.
Results: Cervicography identified all 11 cancers, whereas cytologic testing missed 1. Cervicography yielded sensitivities for detecting high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or cancer of 49.3% overall (specificity, 95.0%), 54.6% in women younger than 50 years of age, and 26.9% in women 50 years of age and older. Cytologic testing yielded sensitivities for detecting high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or cancer of 77.2% overall (specificity, 94. 2%), 75.5% in women younger than 50 years of age, and 84.6% in women 50 years of age and older.
Conclusions: Cytologic testing performed better than cervicography for the detection of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. Cervicography performed marginally better than cytologic testing for the detection of invasive cervical cancer. Cervicography is not recommended for postmenopausal women.