Cervical Screening: New Self Test Found To Be Effective

A new user-friendly self-sampling device has accurately detected the human papillomavirus (HPV) in cervical cells collected by women at home and may increase cervical cancer screenings overall say researchers from The Netherlands. Their findings appear in the July 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.



Human papillomavirus is believed to be on of the main causes of cervical cancer in women. Treatment of cervical cancer in its early stages is considered to be fairly easy and void of any major side effects, however current compliance rates for cervical screenings are not optimal. Records show that annually 30% of woman in The Netherlands, as well as the United Kingdom and the U.S., invited to participate in cervical screening programs do not attend and as a result half of the cervical cancer cases diagnosed are within this same group. A recent study polled more than 2,500 of the women who would not participate in screening programs and found that almost 30% of them actively responded when offered the option of a self-sampling method.



In the study women who had previously had a positive cervical smear test for HPV as well as healthy volunteers took a self-obtained sample at home and then visited a gynecologist where another sample was taken using an endocervical brush. Both samples were then processed using the high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) test and self-obtained samples were shown to be equally sensitive in detecting high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia as those collected from the endocervical brush.



"In conclusion, self-obtained samples taken by this novel device are highly representative of the hrHPV status of the cervix," say the researchers. "In combination with hrHPV testing, the use of this device may have implications for increasing the attendance rate for cervical cancer screening."



(A.A.T.P. Brink, C.J.L.M. Meijer, M.A.H.M. Wiegerinck, T.E. Nieboer, R.F.P.M. Kruitwagen, F. Van Kemenade, N.F. Daalmeijer, A.T. Hesselink, J. Berkhof, P.J.F. Snijders. 2006. High concordance of results of testing for human papillomavirus in cervicovaginal samples collected by two methods, with comparison of a novel self-sampling device to a conventional endocervical brush. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 44. 7: 2518-2523.)







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Contact: Carrie Patterson


American Society for Microbiology