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Although both the Cobas and Aptima platforms offer highly sensitive tests for high-grade cervical lesions, Aptima HPV testing demonstrated significantly higher specificity and positive predictive value than Cobas testing for biopsy-confirmed ≥HSIL. The considerable difference may be related to the significant increase in E6/E7 expression after HPV DNA integration. The significantly higher specificity and overall accuracy of Aptima testing for ≥HSIL, resulting in the identification of high-risk populations that require immediate treatment and close follow-up, may prove useful in clinical risk stratification. Cancer Cytopathol 2017;125:652-7. © 2017 American Cancer Society.

- Our findings suggest that multigenotypic or non-16/18 hrHPV infections often produce deceptive lower-grade cytomorphology, which could result in underdiagnosis and delay of treatment. The HPV infection patterns may offer unrecognized benefit beyond HPV genotyping and should be considered during clinical risk evaluation of women with lower-grade cytology.

Our study demonstrated that 5% of women underwent co-testing with negative Pap tests had HGCL on follow-up biopsy. Absence of diagnostic cells was the leading cause for cytology discrepancy and interpretation variances were influenced by marked obscuring inflammation. HPV testing and genotyping had limited value in risk stratification due to extremely low PPV. Focused rescreening of hrHPV-positive NILM with obscuring factors may help reduce interpretation variances.

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