Geographic cytopathology in the era of globalization: A vision and a strategy for getting from here to there

✍ Scribed by Carlos W.M. Bedrossian

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 71 KB
• Volume: 33
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 8755-1039
• DOI: 10.1002/dc.20414

✦ Synopsis

Clinical cytology came of age at midpoint of last century, when the Pap smear gained acceptance in the US and fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsies became popular in Europe. A convergence of factors resulted in these developments, much of which had nothing to do with science. Following WWII, Europe lay in shambles, while the US and the Soviet Union emerged as the leaders of a new, polarized world. Unscathed by the ravages of war, the US began a period of prosperity unlike any before and since, while the Soviet Union pushed its borders westward, keeping most Central European nations as its satellites for the next 72 yr. Everyone knows how the Cold War ended, but what happened to clinical cytology in the meantime?

The US could afford the luxury of preventive medicine, including the screening of populations at risk for cancer. The Pap smear became the success story of this approach. In contrast, the scarcity of intact medical facilities forced European clinicians to find a rapid methodology to exclude the presence of cancer on an out-patient basis. From this need to the spread of FNA based upon a simple variation of the Romanowsky stain was a simple step. The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm became a Mecca for future practitioners of this procedure, including pathologists from both sides of the Atlantic. Improvements in endoscope instrumentation and imaging techniques greatly accelerated the evolution of cytopathology, which can be divided chronologically into three distinct periods: (1) Development (1952Development ( -1964)), ( 2) Consolidation (1964Consolidation ( -1976), ),