[Surface scraping and curettage of the cervix - an alternative procedure to conization in patients with positive cytology (author's transl)]

421 patients with positive cytological cervical smears had fractioned surface scraping and curettage of the cervix. The clinical results equaled those of cone biopsy series: in 68,6% the histological diagnosis was exactly the same before and after treatment; in 17,5% there were minimal but clinically unimportant changes in histological assessment; in 10,6% the lesion had been completely removed by scraping and curettage. Thus 407 patients (96,7%) were treated in the same way as if the definitive histological diagnosis would have been known in advance. Only in 5 patients (1,25%) the first step was inadequate retrospectively and further treatment was necessary. Regarding the comparable clinical results the essentially poorer risks and costs favour the surface scraping and endocervical curettage against cone biopsy.