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Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Testing for Secondary Prevention of Cervical Cancer

  • Management of HPV and Associated Cervical Lesions (L Denny, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

The strong causal association between human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer led to the development of HPV detection tests as alternatives to cytology. Several cross-sectional studies evaluated the HPV detection tests in a variety of settings. The pooled sensitivity of HPV test for detection of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 2+ and 3+ diseases was 90 and 95 %, respectively, in these studies. Randomized controlled studies demonstrated substantially higher detection rates of CIN 2+ and 3+ lesions than cytology in the baseline round of screening. In subsequent rounds of screening, HPV-negative women had significantly lower risk of developing CIN 3 or invasive cancers compared to the cytology-negative women, thus proving the higher protective effect of HPV screening. The World Health Organization recommends HPV detection tests as the test of first choice for cervical cancer screening, if affordable. HPV tests are also recommended to triage minor cytological abnormalities and follow up women after treatment of high-grade lesions.

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Partha Basu, Smita Joshi, and Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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  1. Screening Group, Early Detection and Prevention Section, International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO), 150 cours Albert Thomas, 69372, Lyon CEDEX 08, France

    Partha Basu & Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan

  2. Hirabhai Cowasji Jehngir Medical Research Institute and Prayas, Pune, India

    Smita Joshi

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  1. Partha Basu
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Correspondence to Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Management of HPV and Associated Cervical Lesions

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Basu, P., Joshi, S. & Sankaranarayanan, R. Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Testing for Secondary Prevention of Cervical Cancer. Curr Obstet Gynecol Rep 4, 201–212 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13669-015-0133-z

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