The terms ‘potential cervical cancer’, ‘abnormal’, ‘negative’ and ‘inadequate’ are used within the report to represent groupings of the result categories detailed above.
They are defined as follows in terms of the categories used on the cytology report form HMR 101/5:
Potential cervical cancer
HMR 101/5 cat. 5 (high-grade dyskaryosis/?invasive squamous carcinoma) or cat. 6 (?glandular neoplasia of endocervical type); women who have such test results should be referred urgently for further investigation.
Abnormal
HMR 101/5 cat. 8 (borderline change in squamous cells), cat. 9 (borderline change in endocervical cells), cat. 3 (low-grade dyskaryosis), cat. 7 (high-grade dyskaryosis (moderate)), cat. 4 (high-grade dyskaryosis (severe)), cat. 5 & 6 (see potential cancer above).
Negative
HMR 101/5 cat. 2 (negative); women with a negative test result will usually be returned to the screening programme to be called again at the normal interval (3 or 5 years).
Shorter recall intervals may be appropriate for women under surveillance or follow-up after treatment.
Inadequate
HMR 101/5 cat. 1 (inadequate); inadequate means it was not possible to obtain a valid result from the sample.
Women with inadequate samples will be recalled for a repeat test. Women with 3 consecutive inadequate results should be referred to colposcopy for further investigation. Under HPV primary screening, women are referred for colposcopy after 2 consecutive tests with any combination of HPV unavailable or cytology inadequate