What can a colposcopy check?

Many problems may occur in a woman's vagina, such as vaginal lesions or growths in the vagina. In addition, there may be some serious diseases, such as cervical cancer. The symptoms of this disease are relatively mild in the early stages, and it is easy to be misdiagnosed, thus missing the best time for treatment. In order to identify the disease in time, the most popular method at present is colposcopy. In addition, colposcopy can also check the following items.

What can a colposcopy check?

1. Those with Pap test grade II or above.

2. Those with suspected cervical malignancy by naked eye.

3. Those who have contact bleeding but no obvious lesions on the cervix observed with the naked eye.

4. Those with vulvar or vaginal lesions.

5. Those whose lesion extent is determined before cervical conization.

Contraindications

There are no absolute contraindications to colposcopy. Its relative contraindications, namely contraindications to endoscopic biopsy, are acute inflammation of the reproductive tract, heavy vaginal bleeding, and cervical malignant tumors.

Check steps

1. After the patient has emptied his bladder, he takes the lithotomy position and uses a vaginal speculum to expose the cervical vagina.

2. Use a cotton ball to gently wipe away cervical secretions and mucus.

3. Observe the shape, size, color, spots and growths of the cervix with the naked eye.

4. Turn on the lighting switch, adjust the objective lens to the same level as the examined part, adjust the distance of the objective lens, generally about 20 cm away from the cervix, and adjust the focal length of the objective lens until the image is clear. Use a 10x low-power microscope to roughly observe the shape, color, and blood vessels of the cervix under white light, and then use a high-power microscope to identify cervical lesions.

5. Use a cotton ball dipped in 3% to 5% acetic acid to rub the surface of the cervix. Under the action of acetic acid, the columnar epithelium swells and becomes slightly white and grape-like, while the squamous epithelium becomes slightly white without any grape-like changes. This can be used to distinguish between the squamous epithelium and the columnar epithelium. After 1 to 2 minutes, the color change will fully appear, and the suspicious lesion area should be carefully observed. If long-term observation is required, 3% to 5% acetic acid solution should be applied repeatedly every 3 to 5 minutes. In order to clearly observe the changes in blood vessel morphology, green filter lenses can be used for inspection. After the acetic acid test, the surface of the cervix is ​​smeared with compound iodine solution. The primitive squamous epithelium is stained dark brown, the columnar epithelium is not stained, and the metaplastic squamous epithelium shows different shades of staining depending on the degree of maturity of the metaplasia. The location and range of the lesion can be determined based on this. The negative area of ​​iodine test (unstained area) is the suspicious lesion site. A biopsy is taken from the negative area and sent for pathological examination.