Liquid-based cytology improves specimen adequacy. The most significant alterations seen with the ThinPrep technique include: Selective loss of extracellular material, which prevents it from obscuring cells, but may cause a loss of diagnostic clues. Selective loss of small cells Fragmentation of large sheets and papillae Absence of smearing artifacts seen on conventional smears, which usually facilitates the diagnosis, but also removes the opportunity to see characteristic smearing artifacts such as chromatin smearing in small-cell carcinoma. As studied on SurePath and ThinPrep, early trials showed increased detection of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2 and CIN3), but subsequent meta-analyses and prospective randomized trials have failed to demonstrate a significant difference between conventional smears and liquid cytology in the detection of CIN2 and CIN3. References Histopathology