The cytology laboratory services in Malaysia.

The course of clinical cytology from the second half of the 19th century was punctuated by advances and setbacks until 1943 when Papanicolaou and Traut published their classical monograph entitled "Diagnosis of uterine cancer by the vaginal smear". Since then, the science of cells, "Cytology", has gained a firm foothold in the field of laboratoty medicine as a diagnostic tool. In the short time since it entered the field of Pathology as a subspeciality, the scope of Cytology has widened with astonishing rapidity to cover a wide variety of anatomical sites and clinical conditions.