Simple BASIC Program for Calculating the Cervicovaginal FNP and for Estimating the Sample Size of the Number of Cervicovaginal Smears To Be Rescreened

OBJECTIVE: To guide cytotechnologists and pathologists in calculating the false negative proportion, or rate, and the number of Papanicolaou smears to be reevaluated for a meaningful assessment of screening performance, a computer program written in BASIC was prepared, based on several recent publications in the field of cytopathology, RESULTS: A complete program listing and sample runs to help users be cognizant of the necessary inputs to run the program. The output from the program gives the results of the various calculations. CONCLUSION: Since the tedious manual calculations are handled by the computer program, it is more likely for those involved in the interpretation of Papanicolaou smears to follow the approaches suggested by experts in these two areas.