{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,9]],"date-time":"2026-05-09T13:11:08Z","timestamp":1778332268833,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences","issue":"2","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Pak J Med Sci"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Objective: The present study was aimed to screen the Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection in cervical smears of clinically suspicious to asymptomatic pregnant women of local population.\r\nMethod: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Histopathology, University of Health Sciences Lahore, Pakistan from August 2021 to September 2022. A total of N=120 cervical smears were taken from the pregnant females of gestation age 18-38 weeks, visiting the outpatient department (OPD) of Gynecology &amp; Obstetrics, Jinnah Hospital Lahore. Endocervical smears were taken; cell block and cytospin preparations were prepared. The cytological changes were categorized according to the updated Bethesda Classification System 2014 and the samples were screened for the presence of HSV 1 &amp; 2 through immunocytochemistry (ICC), immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Immunofluorescence (IF). SPSS version 25.0 was used to analyze the data and p-Value of \u2264 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.\r\nResults: Out of N=120 pregnant females, 12.5% were positive for HSV on ICC while 2.5% cases showed positive nuclear staining for HSV on cell block by IHC. On IF staining, around 7.5% samples were positive for HSV by cytospin method whereas 15% cases showed positivity for HSV on cell block method. Typical herpetic genital lesions were observed in 13% of HSV positive females (p=0.043). Pap staining of cervical smears revealed negative for intraepithelial lesion or malignancy (NILM) in 90% of the samples while 10% of the cases were suggestive of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS). Moreover, 13% cases showed candida albicans on culture test. None of the subjects showed positive Trichomonas vaginalis on wet smears.\r\nConclusion: Early and effective diagnosis of sub-clinical cervico-vaginal HSV infection in pregnant females by adopting minimally invasive cytological techniques and immunofluorescent staining may lead to reduced morbidity and mortality.\r\ndoi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12669\/pjms.41.2.10045\r\nHow to cite this: Farrukh K, Zaki S, Rasheed F, Niaz S, Javed M, Naseem N. Screening for subclinical genital herpes in pregnant females - A neglected practice. Pak J Med Sci. 2025;41(2):443-448. doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12669\/pjms.41.2.10045\r\nThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.12669\/pjms.41.2.10045","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,23]],"date-time":"2025-01-23T17:53:11Z","timestamp":1737654791000},"page":"443-448","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Screening for subclinical genital herpes in pregnant females - A neglected practice"],"prefix":"10.12669","volume":"41","author":[{"given":"Kainat","family":"Farrukh","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Saima","family":"Zaki","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Farhan","family":"Rasheed","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sumaira","family":"Niaz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Maham","family":"Javed","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nadia","family":"Naseem","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"4935","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,23]]},"container-title":["Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/pjms.org.pk\/index.php\/pjms\/article\/download\/10045\/2599","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/pjms.org.pk\/index.php\/pjms\/article\/download\/10045\/2599","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,9]],"date-time":"2026-05-09T12:41:01Z","timestamp":1778330461000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/pjms.org.pk\/index.php\/pjms\/article\/view\/10045"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,23]]},"references-count":0,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,22]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12669\/pjms.41.2.10045","relation":{},"ISSN":["1681-715X","1682-024X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1681-715X","type":"electronic"},{"value":"1682-024X","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,23]]}}}