Background: Cotesting with the Papanicolaou (Pap) and human papillomavirus tests detects most precancerous and cancerous lesions and increases the sensitivity for detecting high-grade precancerous and invasive cervical cancers compared with human papillomavirus testing alone.
Objective: To compare the use of the Papette brush (hereafter Papette) to the traditional spatula with endocervical brush (cytobrush) for cervical cancer screening.
Design: Pragmatic observational study.
Methods: Adult women aged 21-64 years who were eligible for a Papanicolaou test at a Midwest Community Internal Medicine practice underwent cervical cancer screening using the Papette or spatula with cytobrush from 18 August 2021 through 1 February 2022. Cluster sampling was used across the practice. Pathology reports were then analyzed to compare the number of satisfactory versus unsatisfactory results between the two collection techniques.
Results: We collected results for 756 Pap tests. The test results were satisfactory with the Papette 93.8% of the time compared with 93.0% for the spatula with cytobrush.
Conclusion: The Papette is not inferior to a spatula with cytobrush as a collection method for Pap tests.
Keywords: Pap smear; Papanicolaou test; Papette; cytobrush; spatula.