Citología endometrial en pacientes posmenopáusicas con terapia hormonal

objective: to demonstrate the efficacy of endometrial cytology with the uterobrush？ sampler and compare it with endometrial biopsy, in postmenopausal women under hormonal replacement therapy. method: prospective study with 30 patients during a lapse of six months, fifteen of them refered abnormal uterine bleeding and the other fifteen did not. endometrial cytology sampling was done with uterobrush？ and biopsy with novak′s currette to all patients. difficulty, pain, bleeding, cervical characteristics, celularity and adequacy of the sampling where assessed, cytology was compared with biopsy diagnosis. setting: gynecology service of the university hospital of los andes, results: 73.3 % of the patients did not refer pain. no bleeding was present after the introduction of uterobrush ？ in 53.3 %. the samples were adequate in 70 % of cases. principal cause of limitation was poor fixation of cells. when comparing cytologic diagnosis with biopsy we found a sensitivity of 71 % and 75 % specificity. conclusions: the endometrial cytology with uterobrush？ is a procedure easy to use, economic, and well tolerated by the patients; being useful to evaluate the endometrium in post menopausal women, but not pretending to overtake endometrial biopsy.