KaryoWizard
A multimedia tutoring system for the cytoscreener
In spite of the proven ability of the "Pap" smear method to lower the death rate for genital cancer the morbidity remains high (between 20% and 40%), caused by false negative diagnosis of the cytoscreener who failed in the detection of certain types of abnormal cells. Reviewing the psychological and cytopathological literature it became evident that many of the daily problems of gynecologic cytology screening are produced by difficulties of the human visual cognition for search tasks and the distinction between rather similar prototypes and by different pathological classification standards.
KaryoWizard, the PC-software tutoring system enhances and supports the cognitive abilities which are neccessary for the diagnosis of the cytoscreener by visualization of different classification standards. This multimedia tutoring system was developed not only for education of students and cyto technologists but also for the quality improvement of diagnosis in daily screening practice. It consists of 2D- and 3D- computer generalized graphic models of different cellular and histological changes of the cervix uteri due to inflammation, degeneration, radiation, benign proliferative reactions, HPV infection, dysplasia, squamous cell carcinoma in situ, invasive squamous cell carcinoma and microcarcinoma contrasting digitalized original data. The concept of dyskaryosis and the visual and cognitive effects of additional interactive factors like the age of the patient and the sampling moment are classified by statistical methods like multidimensional scaling and the results visualized. These prototypes are completed by additional training lessons with prepared pictorial data of search tasks.
The 2D- and 3D-visualization of certain types of abnormal changes combined with the statistical classification of the influence of interactive factors improves the diagnostic knowledge of the cytoscreener and makes him aware of the cognitive pitfalls of his diagnostic situation. Furthermore it is possible to integrate and to extend different pathological classification standards on the basis of quantitative statistical classification methods.