Current Status of Diagnostic Cytology

Progress in science is often promoted by a new method. Diagnostic cytology, however, developed slowly over a whole century, mainly in differentiating malignant from benign cells from various tissues. The decisive step in this development was the intensive investigation of one local­ ization by Papanicolaou: The application of cytology for screening in the field of gynecologic oncology made it an acknowledged technique. Consequently, materials inves­ tigated before were tested again on a larger