Commentary: Liquid automation refreshes Dr Papanicolaou

[...]the proportion of specimens rejected as unsuitable for examination should fall, allowing the productivity of cytology labs to rise. The ThinPrep imaging system used by Davey et al 2 is intended not to replace human judgment, but to facilitate it by drawing the attention of the microscopist to the cells of most relevance. 4 It uses a stain that gives an appearance similar to that used in the conventional smear test, but in which the intensity of colouration is closely correlated with the DNA content of the nucleus.