The autopap in QC mode rereads the negative slides and ranks them in order the atypia probable. So, you would extract the 10 or 15% of paps with the highest probability of abnormality present. You may find no abnormality upon rescreen, or you may find missed aypia/carcinoma. You will eventually find tiny high grade/ low grade cells missed on regular screening due to obscuring artifact. The automatic cell dotter will allow the tech to easily locate the cells that have the abnormal criteria that has been programmed into the computer.
A Pathologist today asked whether cytotechs will be necessary at all since the autopap will be dotting. Good point, but since the FDA only approved a 25% sign out rate the techs will be determining which of the 75% remaining slides are truly abnormal.
This 25% rate eliminates a costly tech as long as workload runs at 230 slides per day or more in the laboratory. Also, the human rescreeners have had their screening job make easier and less stressful in that they can relook at the remaining slide in order of most probably atypical.
On the other hand, the easy, clean smears will be signed out by the computer leaving the atypical, ambiguous or gunky smear for the cytotechnologists.
High risk slides will still need a human QC rescreen, no problem, we do that already.
I am in a hurry this evening, I has something I must complete. I hope I have clarified the practical application for you, if not let me know and I will respond when I can. |
