Liquid-based cytology is reported to increase the sensitivity of cervical cytology and the proportion of slides that are satisfactory for assessment, in comparison with conventional cytology.
The proportion of slide-negative clients who received any antimalarial was 590/1854 (32%) in the intervention arm and 1378/1570 (88%) in the control arm (adjusted risk ratio 0.41 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.58), P<0.0001).
The proportion of slides with endocervical cells submitted to the NHLS for cytology from public sector clinics declined, from 80.5 % in 2010 to only 54 % in 2014.
For the analyses conducted to determine whether the scoring of the staining was reproducible, we calculated separately for each marker the proportion of slides that were scored consistently by the two pathologists and estimated the Cohen's kappa statistics using expression in two categories (expressed vs. not expressed) as for the other analyses.
Median proportions of slide versus lift were 0.96 for the group seeded with slide versus 0. 01 for the group seeded with lift.
Monthly slide positivity rates (SPRs) were calculated as the proportion of positive slides of all slides in a given month.
Overall crude proportions of slides positive were reduced approximately 4-fold, from 32.8% (19,284/58,851) in 2003 to 8.5% (5145/60,669) in 2009, and the mean positivity across individual sites was reduced from 38.9% in 2003 to 7.2% in 2009.
The proportion of reference slide positive patients not prescribed antimalarials was higher with the use of RDTs but this did not reach statistical significance (1280 participants, one trial, Analysis 1.8).
During malaria epidemics, the slide positivity proportion becomes very high (16, 17 ), and the rise in the proportion of positive slides may begin at the onset of the epidemic to give an early warning, as our data showed.
In this model, a high proportion of inadequate slides leads to missed opportunities for diagnosis as women are lost to care.
Some studies have indicated that the proportions of positive slides were significantly higher than the usual rate during epidemics (16, 17 ), but whether the rise in proportion of positive slides occurs early enough to serve as a useful early detection system is not known.
