HPV testing alone is not as safe as cytology and selective HPV testing

Re: HPV testing alone is not as safe as cytology and selective HPV testing

“…This debate for and against primary human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for cervical cancer screening is important, and needs more discussion before irrevocable changes are made to the national screening programmes in the UK . No one doubts that HPV is more sensitive than cytology in most centres (with the notable exception of ARTISTIC in Manchester for the first two rounds of screening, as cited by Kitchener in the debate), but most of the trials recommend primary HPV testing in women aged at least 30 years, taking no account of women below that age who may have already been treated for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 (CIN2) or higher.…”

“…What is needed is two rounds of co‐testing, as I have suggested, or even a single round of testing, as Nick Dudding suggests in this debate . Apart from avoiding the consequences of false‐negative HPV and cytology tests, this would avoid compromising the accuracy of cytology, which will still be still needed for the triage of HPV‐positive samples, by leaving some HPV‐negative samples in the slides to be examined.…”