Authors' recommendations: Women presenting with an ambiguous smear test result may benefit from triaging with an additional test for human papillomavirus (HPV) status. Testing for the 13 or 14 HPV genotypes considered to confer high-risk for the development of cervical cancer would appear to be of some benefit, however further stratification of testing just for the high-risk HPV16 and HPV18 genotypes may reduce the number of women referred on for invasive colposcopy. In preliminary studies, the Cervista HPV 16/18 appears to have good agreement with the gold standard of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) bidirectional sequencing and has reasonable sensitivity and specificity for women diagnosed with cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia (CIN) 2 and CIN 3 abnormalities. Although New Zealand have recently adopted HPV testing in conjunction with conventional Pap smears, the cervical cancer screening program in Australia is not ready to screen women for HPV. Therefore, HealthPACT has recommended that further assessment of this technology is no longer warranted.

Project Status: Completed

Year Published: 2009

URL for published report: Not Available

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Australia

Organisation Name: Adelaide Health Technology Assessment

Contact Address: School of Public Health, Mail Drop 545, University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005, AUSTRALIA, Tel: +61 8 8313 4617

Contact Name: ahta@adelaide.edu.au

Contact Email: ahta@adelaide.edu.au

Copyright: Adelaide Health Technology Assessment (AHTA)