Background: Cancer of the cervix is the third most common cancer in women. In India and other developing countries cervical cancer is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Cancer cervix is readily preventable, and can be diagnosed at the preinvasive stage with adequate and repetitive cytological screening with Papanicolaou (Pap) smears. Objectives: This is a retrospective study aimed toevaluate all previously conducted cervical smears examined at a teaching tertiary hospital during a 6 months period. Methods: Detailed clinical data and Pap smear cytology reports were obtained and data noted in a structured proforma. All the smears were reported as per the 2001 Bethesda system. Results: A total of 556 Pap smears were examined. Maximum number of patients was in the age group of 2534years (28.1%). A total of 142 smears (25.5%) were reported to have normal cytological findings , 148 (26.6%) showed superficial squamous cells, 259 (46.6%) were inflammatory, 6 (1.1%) smears showed LSIL and 1(0.18%) showed HSIL. Conclusion: Premalignant and malignant lesions of cervix can be diagnosed easily by Pap smears. The epithelial cell abnormality rate in our study was 1.26%.

Keywords: Cervical Cytology; Pap Smear; Screening; Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (SIL).