Cervicography is a diagnostic medical procedure in which a non-physician takes pictures of the

cervix The cervix or cervix uteri (Latin, 'neck of the uterus') is the lower part of the uterus (womb) in the human female reproductive system. The cervix is usually 2 to 3 cm long (~1 inch) and roughly cylindrical in shape, which changes during ...

and submits them to a physician for interpretation. Other related procedures are

speculoscopy Speculoscopy is a procedure in which a special blue-white light (Speculite) is used to examine the cervix for cancerous or pre-cancerous lesions. Acetic acid is applied to the cervix, it is let sit for 60 seconds, then the cervix is examined w ...

and

colposcopy Colposcopy ( grc, κόλπος, kolpos, hollow, womb, vagina + ''skopos'' "look at") is a medical diagnostic procedure to visually examine the cervix as well as the vagina and vulva using a colposcope. The main goal of colposcopy is to prevent c ...

. The procedure is considered a screening test for

cervical cancer Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix. It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Early on, typically no symptoms are seen. Later symptoms may include abnormal ...

and is complementary to

Pap smear The Papanicolaou test (abbreviated as Pap test, also known as Pap smear (AE), cervical smear (BE), cervical screening (BE), or smear test (BE)) is a method of cervical screening used to detect potentially precancerous and cancerous processes in t ...

. The technique was initially developed by Adolf Stafl, MD, of Medical College of Wisconsin in 1981. Unlike colposcopy, cervicography does not have a current CPT/

HCPCS The Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS, often pronounced by its acronym as "hick picks") is a set of health care procedure codes based on the American Medical Association's Current Procedural Terminology (CPT). History The acronym ''H ...

code and typically is not covered by most medical insurance companies. (Cervicography was given a Category III CPT code of 0003T, but this was discontinued in 2006.) Cervicography is no more sensitive than Pap smear screening, and has a higher false positive rate (thus increasing the number of colposcopies needed).van Niekerk WA, Dunton CJ, Richart RM, Hilgarth M, Kato H, Kaufman RH, Mango LJ, Nozawa S, Robinowitz M. Colposcopy, cervicography, speculoscopy and endoscopy. International Academy of Cytology Task Force summary. Diagnostic Cytology Towards the 21st Century: An International Expert Conference and Tutorial. Acta Cytol. 1998 Jan-Feb;42(1):33-49. Whether cervicography could have a role in countries where Pap smear screening programs are not in place depends on cost effectiveness and remained to be determined as of 1998. A 2005 study found the sensitivity and specificity of cervicography for

cervical intraepithelial neoplasia Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), also known as cervical dysplasia, is the abnormal growth of cells on the surface of the cervix that could potentially lead to cervical cancer. More specifically, CIN refers to the potentially precancerous t ...

to be 72.3% and 93.2% respectively; however, a 2007 study criticized the sensitivity figure as "likely... inflated" because the "gold standard" of colposcopy/biopsy may have missed cases of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.Pretorius RG, Bao YP, Belinson JL, Burchette RJ, Smith JS, Qiao YL
Inappropriate gold standard bias in cervical cancer screening studies.
Int J Cancer. 2007 Nov 15;121(10):2218-24.

References

{{Human papillomavirus Female genital procedures Endoscopy