Eighty-six women with cervical dysplasia and unsatisfactory colposcopy were managed with excisional conization--43 with outpatient loop diathermy conization under local anesthesia and 43 matched controls with cold-knife conization as inpatients under general anesthesia. Both groups were similar in terms of age, parity, and severity of dyskaryosis on initial cytology, treatment success rates, and completeness of excision. However, loop diathermy conization was significantly quicker (2.8 +/- 2.9 min vs 14 +/- 18.6 min) and associated with less intraoperative blood loss (3.3 +/- 2.8 ml vs 79.1 +/- 74.6 ml) (P < 0.01) than cold-knife conization. Furthermore, the proportion of women with at least one complication was significantly less following loop (4.7%) than cold-knife conization (20.9%) (P < 0.05). We conclude that outpatient loop diathermy conization performed under local anesthesia is quicker and causes less intraoperative blood loss and immediate postoperative complications than cold-knife conization for management of cervical dysplasia associated with unsatisfactory colposcopy.