Aurel Babeş

Aurel Babeş was a Romanian scientist and one of the discoverers of the vaginal smear as screening test for cervical cancer. He was the nephew of Victor Babeş, co-author (with Cornil) of the first treaty of bacteriology.

cientific discoveries

Although Georgios Papanikolaou is generally credited for the invention of the cervical cancer screening test by cervical cytology, O'Dowd and Philipp [O'Dowd MJ, Philipp EE. "The History of Obstetrics & Gynaecology". London: Parthenon Publishing Group; 1994: 547 ] believe that Dr. Aurel Babeş, of Romania, was the true pioneer in the cytologic diagnosis of cervical cancer. Babeş's 1927 work, however, was published in the "Proceedings of the Bucharest Gynecological Society", and it is unlikely that Papanicolaou was aware of it.

The fact that malignant cells could be seen under the microscope was first pointed out in a book on diseases of the lung, written Walter Hayle Walshe (1812-1892), professor and physician to University College Hospital, London, in 1843. This fact was recounted by Georgios Papanikolaou, who, in all modesty, did not claim that he originated the technique.

In 1923, Georgios Papanikolaou told an incredulous audience of physicians about the technique of gathering cellular debris from the lining of the vaginal tract and smearing it on a glass slide for microscopic examination as a way to identify cervical cancer. That year he had undertaken a study of vaginal fluid in women, in hopes of observing cellular changes over the course of a menstrual cycle. In female guinea pigs, Papanicolaou had already noticed cell transformation and wanted to corroborate the phenomenon in human females. It happened that one of Papanicolaou's human subjects was suffering from uterine cancer.

Upon examination of a slide made from a smear of the patient's vaginal fluid, Papanicolaou discovered that abnormal cancer cells could be plainly observed under a microscope. "The first observation of cancer cells in the smear of the uterine cervix," he later wrote, "gave me one of the greatest thrills I ever experienced during my scientific career."

At a 1928 medical conference in Battle Creek, Michigan, Papanicolaou introduced his low-cost, easily performed screening test for early detection of the cancerous and precancerous cells. However, this potential medical breakthrough was initially met with scepticism and resistance from the scientific community. Papanicolaou's next communication on the subject did not appear until 1941 when, with gynecologist Herbert Traut, he published a paper on the diagnostic value of vaginal smears in carcinoma of the uterus [Papanicolaou GN, Traut HF. "The diagnostic value of vaginal smears in carcinoma of the uterus". "American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology". 1941;42:193.] . This was followed 2 years later by an illustrated monograph based on a study of over 3000 cases.

Notes and references

External links

* [http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2402.html] whonamedit.com article about the discovery of the cytologic screening of cervical cancer (accessed September 25, 2006)
* [http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/459134] Medscape article on cervical cancer screening (accessed April 21, 2006)