| Aurel Babeş | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1886 Romania |
| Died | 31 December 1961 Bucharest |
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.
Aurel Babeş was born in 1886, in Romania. His father, also named Aurel, was a chemistry professor. Aurel Babeş married fellow gynecologist Lucia Serbanescu in 1930. They adopted a daughter, who became an acclaimed opera singer. Babes was 74 years old when he died in Bucharest in 1961.
It is said that Aurel Babeş was very aware of the great international reputation that Georges Papanikolaou had gained in contrast to his own. In a spirit of recognition and fairness, Romania refers to cervical testing as "Methode Babeş-Papanicolaou" in honor of Dr. Babeş.
Although Georgios Papanikolaou is generally credited for the invention of the cervical cancer screening test by cervical cytology, O'Dowd and Philipp[1] believe that Dr. Aurel Babeş, of Romania, was the true pioneer in the cytologic diagnosis of cervical cancer. He discovered that if a platinum loop was used to collect cells from a woman's cervix, and the cells were then dried on a slide and stained, it could be determined if cancer cells were present. This was the first screening test to diagnose cervical and uterine cancer. Babeş presented his findings to the Romanian Society of Gynaecology in Bucharest on 23 January 1927. His method of cancer diagnosis was published in a French medical journal, Presse Médicale on 11 April 1928. Babeş's 1927 work, however, was published in the Proceedings of the Bucharest Gynecological Society in French, and it is unlikely that Papanicolaou was aware of it. Moreover, the two techniques are completely different in their design and concept. This breakthrough in cervical cancer diagnosis and has saved the lives of over 6 million women.[2]