High-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in human papillomavirus self-sampling of screening non-attenders.

BACKGROUND: Self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) offered to women who do not participate in cervical cancer screening is an increasingly popular method to increase screening coverage. The rationale behind self-sampling is that unscreened women harbour a high proportion of undetected precancer lesions. Here, we compare the cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (⩾CIN2) detection rate between non-attenders who participated in self-sampling and women attending routine screening. METHODS: A total of 23 632 women who were qualified as non-attenders in the Copenhagen Region were invited for HPV-based self-sampling. Of these, 4824 women returned a self-sample, and HPV-positive women were referred for cytology and HPV co-testing as follow-up. The entire cohort and a reference cohort (3347 routinely screened women) were followed for histopathology confirmed ⩾CIN2. Odds ratio (OR) and the relative positive predictive value of ⩾CIN2 detection between the two populations were estimated. RESULTS: Women participating in self-sampling had a higher ⩾CIN2 detection than women undergoing routine cytology-based screening (OR=1.83, 95% CI: 1.21-2.77) and a similar detection as routinely screened women tested with cytology and HPV testing (OR=1.03, 95% CI: 0.75-1.40). The positive predictive value for ⩾CIN2 was higher in screening non-attenders than in routinely HPV- and cytology-screened screened women (36.5% vs 25.6%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Self-sampling offered to non-attenders showed higher detection rates for ⩾CIN2 than routine cytology-based screening, and similar detection rates as HPV and cytology co-testing. This reinforces the importance of self-sampling for screening non-attenders in organised cervical cancer screening.

Prevalence of Human Papillomavirus in Self-Taken Samples from Screening Nonattenders.

The Copenhagen Self-Sampling Initiative (CSi) has shown how human papillomavirus (HPV)-based self-sampling can be used to increase screening participation among 23,632 nonattenders in the Capital Region of Denmark. In this study, we describe HPV prevalence and genotype frequency in 4,824 self-samples as determined by three HPV assays (the CLART, Onclarity, and Hybrid Capture 2 [HC2] assays) and compare the results with those for physician-taken follow-up samples. The HPV self-sample findings were also compared to the findings for a reference population of 3,347 routinely screened women from the Horizon study, which had been undertaken in the same screening laboratory. Nonattenders had an HPV prevalence of 11.3% as determined by the CLART assay, which was lower than that for women from the Horizon study (18.5%). One-third of the CSi women who tested HPV positive by self-sampling tested HPV negative on the physician-taken follow-up sample. The CLART and Onclarity assays agreed on 64% (95% confidence interval [CI], 60 to 68%) of the HPV-positive self-taken samples. When the HC2 assay results were added into a three-way comparison, the level of agreement decreased to 27% (95% CI, 24 to 29%). Our findings suggest that further validation of HPV assays on self-taken samples is needed for optimal HPV detection and correct clinical management of HPV-positive women.

Referral population studies underestimate differences between human papillomavirus assays in primary cervical screening.

OBJECTIVE: We studied how representative cytologically abnormal women ("referral populations") are with respect to uncovering differences between human papillomavirus (HPV) assays in the primary screening where most women are cytologically normal. METHODS: A total of 4997 women were tested with SurePath® cytology, and Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2), cobas, CLART and APTIMA HPV assays. Women with positive test results were offered a follow-up. For all detected HPV infections and HPV-positive high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (≥CIN2), we studied the distributions of assay-specific signal strengths in the baseline samples as documented by the assays' automatically generated reports. We calculated the likelihood of test result discordance as the proportion of HPV-positive samples that were not confirmed by all four assays. RESULTS: Median signal strengths for HPV infections were weaker in normal than abnormal cytology (P<.001, adjusted for women's age, multiple infections and the reason for taking the sample). For HC2, they were RLU/CO 11.0 (interquartile range, IQR: 3.3-52.8) vs 124.2 (IQR: 22.8-506.9), respectively; for cobas, Ct 33.5 (IQR: 29.6-37.5) vs 26.9 (IQR: 23.7-31.3), respectively; for APTIMA, S/CO 10.2 (IQR: 5.8-11.3) vs 11.1 (IQR: 9.4-15.5), respectively. Similar patterns were observed for HPV-positive ≥CIN2. The four HPV assays more frequently returned discordant test results in normal than in abnormal cytology. Relative frequency of discordance in detecting HPV infections was 0.39 (95% confidence interval: 0.33-0.48) for abnormal vs normal cytology. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that referral population studies, by not including sufficient numbers of cytology normal women, underestimate the differences between HPV assays that would become apparent in primary screening.

Comparison of Onclarity Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Assay with Hybrid Capture II HPV DNA Assay for Detection of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia Grade 2 and 3 Lesions.

Analytical and clinical performance validation is essential before introduction of a new human papillomavirus (HPV) assay into clinical practice. This study compares the new BD Onclarity HPV assay, which detects E6/E7 DNA from 14 high-risk HPV types, to the Hybrid Capture II (HC2) HPV DNA test, to concurrent cytology and histology results, in order to evaluate its performance in detecting high-grade cervical lesions. A population of 567 women, including 325 with ≥ASCUS (where ASCUS stands for atypical cells of undetermined significance) and any HC2 result and 242 with both negative cytology and negative HC2 results, were prospectively enrolled for the study. The overall agreement between Onclarity and HC2 was 94.6% (95% confidence intervals [CI], 92.3% to 96.2%). In this population with a high prevalence of disease, the relative sensitivities (versus adjudicated cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grades 2 and 3 [CIN2+] histology endpoints) of the Onclarity and HC2 tests were 95.2% (95% CI, 90.7% to 97.5%) and 96.9% (95% CI, 92.9% to 98.7%), respectively, and the relative specificities were 50.3% (95% CI, 43.2% to 57.4%) for BD and 40.8% (95% CI, 33.9%, 48.1%) for HC2. These results indicate that the BD Onclarity HPV assay has sensitivity comparable to that of the HC2 assay, with a trend to an increased specificity. Moreover, as Onclarity gives the chance to discriminate between the different genotypes, we calculated the genotype prevalence and the absolute risk of CIN2+: HPV 16 was the most prevalent genotype (19.8%) with an absolute risk of CIN2+ of 77.1%.

Clinical performance of the HPV-Risk assay on cervical samples in SurePath medium using the VALGENT-4 panel.

BACKGROUND: The VALidation of HPV GENoyping Tests (VALGENT) framework is designed for comparison and clinical validation of HPV assays. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the accuracy of the HPV-Risk assay within VALGENT-4, relative to clinically validated comparator HPV tests. STUDY DESIGN: The VALGENT-4 panel comprises consecutive SurePath cervical samples from routine screening (n=998), of which 51 had abnormal cytology and 13 women had cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 or worse (CIN2+), enriched with SurePath cervical samples from 297 women with abnormal cytology and 109 CIN2+. HPV-Risk assay was performed on DNA extracted panel samples (n=1,295), blinded to clinical data, cytology results, and results from other HPV assays evaluated in VALGENT-4. All assay results were reported to the central VALGENT coordination institute for data and statistical analysis. HPV prevalence was analysed and accuracy for detection of CIN grade 3 or worse (CIN3+) and CIN2+ were assessed relative to GP5+/6+-PCR-EIA and GP5+/6+-PCR-EIA-LMNX. RESULTS: The sensitivity of the HPV-Risk assay for detection of CIN3+ and CIN2+ was similar to that of GP5+/6+-PCR-EIA (relative sensitivity for CIN3+1.01; 95%CI: 0.97-1.06; pMcN=1.000, and for CIN2+1.01; 95%CI: 0.96-1.06; pMcN=1.000) at significantly higher specificity (relative specificity 1.04; 95%CI: 1.02-1.06; pMcN<0.001). The accuracy of the HPV-Risk assay for CIN3+ and CIN2+ was non-inferior compared to GP5+/6+-PCR- EIA and GP5+/6+-PCR-EIA-LMNX, with all p-values ≤0.002. HPV16/18 genotype agreement between HPV-Risk assay and GP5+/6+-PCR-LMNX was high. CONCLUSIONS: The HPV-Risk assay demonstrated non-inferiority to clinically validated comparator assays on cervical samples in SurePath medium using the VALGENT-4 panel, and is therefore suitable for cervical cancer screening.