Abstract:

Background; Cytological artifacts are important to identify because they can result in errors in routine laboratory practice which can bring out an incorrect result. The study aims to describe different types of artifacts and their prevalence that occurred in cytological slides stained by PAP stain at Bugando Medical Center Central Pathology Laboratory from June 2021 to June 2022.

Methodology: A retrospective study was conducted from June 2021 to May 2022. At Central Pathology Laboratory in cytopathology unit Bugando Medical Center involving microscopic review of 354 PAP stained cytological slides from June 2021 to May 2022 achieved at cytopathology laboratory at Bugando Medical Center. Data collected was entered into Microsoft excel 2016 for data cleaning. Data was transferred to Statistical Package for Social Science software (SPSS) version 20 for analysis. The results were presented using table and pie charts

Results: From the retrieved sides the proportion of PAP stained cytology slides with artifacts was 0.675 (67.5%). Of the 239 slides with artifacts, only 85 slides (35.6%) had only one artifact while 154 slides (64.4%) had more than one artefact.

Conclusion: The higher proportion of artifacts in cytology smears at Bugando Medical Centre, Central Pathology laboratory is a call for pre-analytic and analytic strategies to prevent them to allow proper evaluation of the smears for accurate diagnosis.
Recommendation; Proper Sample preparation and processing, regular replacement of Stain reagents, adherence to the Standard Operating Procedure, regular cytopathology laboratory training and junior staff, and appropriate and regular follow-up and storage of cytology slides.