State of the Art Symposium: Prescreening and rescreeningThis article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.The opinions contained herein are not to be construed as official or as representing the views of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Department of Defense, or the Department of Veterans Affairs.Presented at State of the Art Symposium, 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Cytopathology, Orlando, Florida, November 7–12, 2003.

The effectiveness of prescreening and rescreening cervical cytology preparations—whether used as quality assurance measures or in the attempt to improve sensitivity—has engendered broad discussion within the cytology community. This paper forms an introduction to some of the issues surounding prescreening and rescreening in cervical cytology. Cancer (Cancer Cytopathol) 2004. Published 2004 by the American Cancer Society.