METHODS: In total, 232 patients diagnosed with NILM were enrolled and assessed using 8 cytomorphologic parameters.
RESULTS: Six non-classical cytomorphologic features were identified as novel characteristics suggesting HPV infection in patients initially diagnosed with NILM. A combination of these 6 variables showed the best predictive performance for HPV infection (area under the curve, 0.722). In terms of diagnostic ability, the LBMA assay showed better performance in detection of HPV infection (39.7%) in NILM cases compared to the other tests.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the novel cytomorphologic features used in this study can be used as supportive morphologic parameters to increase the sensitivity of cytological screening tests. The LBMA assay could be used as an advanced method for HPV detection.