Cervical screening by cytology has proved an effective means of reducing death rate from cervical cancer and the introduction of Liquid Based Cytology (LBC) has benefited both women and cytoscreeners.
It was thought that the use of automated technology might bring further benefits by making identification of abnormal cells easier. Instead of scanning an entire slide the cytoscreeners would be directed to 15-22 locations on a slide by computerised software.
MAVARIC was a randomised controlled trial set up in August 2005 to compare two automated cervical screening technologies with manual screening. Samples from women undergoing primary cervical screening were randomly allocated to reading by manual screening alone or by one of two automated technologies backed up by manual screening.
This trial has now reported and the authors concluded that automation-assisted reading could not be recommended for primary cervical screening.
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