Cervical Cancer and Human Papillomavirus Awareness among Women in Antigua and Barbuda.

Background and objectives: Cervical cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. Human papilloma virus (HPV) is known to cause cervical cancer. The incidence and mortality of cervical cancer has drastically reduced due to effective vaccination against HPV in developed countries. The projected rise in cervical cancer cases in Latin American and Caribbean countries necessitates a study to evaluate awareness about HPV, cervical cancer, the HPV vaccine, and prevention among women in Antigua and Barbuda. Materials and methods: This was an observational, cross-sectional study. The participants were women aged between 18 and 65 years, residing in Antigua and Barbuda. The study was conducted over the period of February to April 2023. After taking informed consent electronically, sociodemographic and behavioral data was collected through questionnaires sent out as links and QR-codes and were analyzed by QualtricsXM. The association between the demographic groups and awareness about HPV, cervical cancer, the HPV vaccine, and prevention was analyzed by a Chi-square test. Results: In total, 467 women were included in the study. The percentage of participants aware of HPV was 91.6% (n = 412). A total of 70.7% (n = 318) and 56.7% (n = 255) women were aware that cervical cancer is caused by HPV and is sexually transmitted, respectively. Although 70.6% (n = 315) of participants were aware that the vaccine protects against HPV, only 12.8% (n = 57) were vaccinated. Of the participants, 49.7% (n = 192) were willing to get vaccinated. The percentage of participants aware of the Papanicolaou (Pap) smear procedure was 98.9% (n = 435) and 87.8% (n = 382) had a Pap smear within the last 10 years while 12.2% (n = 53) never had a Pap smear screening. The willingness to know more information about HPV and the HPV vaccine among the participants was 77% (n = 335). Conclusions: The overall awareness among women in Antigua and Barbuda about HPV, cervical cancer, the HPV vaccine, and prevention was high. We recommend a national health education program and vaccine drive to complement our findings.

Dominican Provider Attitudes Towards HPV Testing for Cervical Cancer Screening and, Current Challenges to Cervical Cancer Prevention in the Dominican Republic: a Mixed Methods Study.

Creating effective programs for cervical cancer prevention is essential to avoid premature deaths from cervical cancer. The Dominican Republic has persistently high rates of cervical cancer, despite the availability of Pap smear screening. This study explored Dominican provider attitudes towards human papillomavirus (HPV) testing and current challenges to effective cervical cancer prevention. In this Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR)-driven mixed methods study, we conducted in-depth interviews (N = 21) and surveys (N = 202) with Dominican providers in Santo Domingo and Monte Plata provinces regarding their perspectives on barriers to cervical cancer prevention and their knowledge and attitudes towards HPV testing as an alternative to Pap smear. Providers believed the main barrier to cervical cancer prevention was lack of cervical cancer awareness and resulting inadequate population screening coverage. Providers felt that Pap smear was widely available to women in the Dominican Republic and were unsure how a change to HPV testing for screening would address gaps in current cervical cancer screening programs. A subset of providers felt HPV testing offered important advantages for early detection of cervical cancer and were in favor of more widespread use. Cost of the HPV test and target age for screening with HPV testing were the main barriers to acceptability. Providers had limited knowledge of HPV testing as a screening test. The group was divided in terms of the potential impact of a change in screening test in addressing barriers to cervical cancer prevention in the Dominican Republic. Findings may inform interventions to disseminate global evidence-based recommendations for cervical cancer screening.

Impact of operational factors on HPV positivity rates in an HPV-based screening study in Colombia.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of operational factors on the positivity rates of three HPV assays. METHODS: Within the cross-sectional ESTAMPA study, women aged 30-64 years were recruited at healthcare centers from Soacha, Colombia, during 2012-2015. Cervical samples were collected for cotesting with Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2; Qiagen, Gaithersburg, MD, USA), and either Aptima (Hologic, Marlborough, MA, USA) or Cobas 4800 (Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis, IN, USA). The effect of operational factors on assay performance was assessed using adjusted positivity rates obtained from logistic regression models. RESULTS: There were 4168 women included. For samples collected in assay-specific medium, positivity rate differences were associated with the expertise of the nurse collecting the sample (P=0.014 HC2; P=0.091 Aptima) and if sample collection occurred after an initial cytology (P=0.025 HC2; P=0.033 Aptima). If PreservCyt medium (Hologic) was used, HC2 positivity differences were observed depending on the time between sample collection and processing (P=0.026) and on the laboratory technician processing the samples (P=0.003). No differences were observed for PreservCyt samples processed with Aptima or Cobas. CONCLUSION: Nurse expertise, collection of previous cytology, processing time, and laboratory technician could influence HPV assay performance. Suitable quality assurance protocols for HPV-based screening programs are required. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01881659.

HPV testing: a mixed-method approach to understand why women prefer self-collection in a middle-income country.

BACKGROUND: HPV test self-collection has been shown to reduce barriers to cervical screening and increase uptake. However, little is known about women's preferences when given the choice between self-collected and clinician-collected tests. This paper aims to describe experiences with HPV self-collection among women in Jujuy, the first Argentinean province to have introduced HPV testing as the primary screening method, provided free of cost in all public health centers. METHODS: Between July and December 2012, data on acceptability of HPV self-collection and several social variables including past screening were collected from 2616 self-collection accepters and 433 non-accepters, and were analyzed using multivariate regression. In addition, in-depth interviews (n = 30) and 2 focus groups were carried out and analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Quantitative findings indicate that main reasons for choosing self-collection are those reducing barriers related to women's roles of responsibility for domestic work and work/family organization, and to health care services' organization. No social variables were significantly associated with acceptability. Among those who preferred clinician-collection, the main reasons were trust in health professionals and fear of hurting themselves. Qualitative findings also showed that self-collection allows women to overcome barriers related to the health system (i.e. long wait times), without sacrificing time devoted to work/domestic responsibilities. CONCLUSIONS: Findings have implications for self-collection recommendations, as they show it is the preferred method when women are given the choice, even if they are not screening non-attenders. Findings also highlight the importance of incorporating women's needs/preferences in HPV screening recommendations.

Specimen self-collection and HPV DNA screening in a pilot study of 100,242 women.

Since cervical cancer remains common in Mexico despite an established cytology screening program, the Ministry of Health recently introduced pilot front-line HPV testing into the Mexican cervical cancer screening program (CCSP). Here, we present the key field performance metrics of this population-based study. High-risk HPV DNA (hrHPV) testing was conducted on self-collected vaginal specimens from 100,242 women aged 25-75 years residing in Morelos State. All hrHPV positive women and a random sample of 3.2% (n = 2,864) of hrHPV negative participants were referred for colposcopic examination. The main disease endpoint of interest was cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or higher (CIN2+). We calculated relative risk, positive predictive value and negative predictive value adjusted for screening test verification bias. The overall prevalence of hrHPV was 10.8% (95% CI 10.6-11.0). Women positive for hrHPV had a relative risk of 15.7 for histologically detectable CIN2+. The adjusted positive predictive value of the hrHPV test was 2.4% (95% CI 2.1-2.7); whereas the adjusted negative predictive value was 99.8% (95% CI 99.8-99.9). These findings suggest that large-scale vaginal hrHPV testing in a middle-income country can identify women at greater risk of advanced cervical abnormalities in a programmatically meaningful way but care is warranted to ensure that disease not detectable at colposcopy is kept to a minimum. PASS shows areas that need improvement and sets the stage for wider use of hrHPV screening of self-collected vaginal specimens in Mexico.