Assessment of Pathtezt® Infinity Processor and Autoloader Efficiency in Cervical Smear Analysis
To assess the cellularity, epithelial cell coverage, cellular arrangement, preservation, and interfering factors of cervical cytological smears produced by the PathTezt® Infinity with Autoloader. A total of 1003 Pap smear samples were taken from Hospital Pakar Universiti Sains Malaysia and Hospital Raja Perempuan Zainab II and processed using the PathTezt® Infinity. The slides were evaluated for smear adequacy, epithelial cells coverage, cellular arrangement, interfering factors, and cellular preservation. Approximately 946 samples (94.1%) were adequate for evaluation. The evaluation of cellular arrangement demonstrated good dispersion in 860 samples (85.7%), while 94.7% of the samples exhibited minimal to no obscuration by inflammatory cells. The presence of erythrocytes did not impede the evaluation of squamous cells in 1002 smears (99.9%). All smears showed good-quality fixation features for nuclear, cytoplasmic, and microorganism evaluation. The overall "good" performance rate was 97.7%. Chi-square analysis between the scoring categories and criteria for scoring showed statistical significance (p < 0.001). The PathTezt® Infinity with Autoloader produces high-quality smears, is easy to operate, fully walk-away, and cost-effective, making it suitable for cervical cancer screening.
