HPV urine test could screen for cervical cancer

Conclusion This systematic review and meta-analysis indicates that urine tests for detecting HPV DNA might be feasible for screening women for cervical cancer based on an evidence base of 14 diverse studies involving 1,443 women. While it is feasible this type of test might be useful for screening, there were many limitations in the evidence base reviewed. This means its effectiveness as a screening tool is still up for debate and is unproven. Issues include: the large variation between individual studies for participant characteristics the large variation in estimates of test sensitivity and specificity between individual studies the lack of standardised methods of urine testing and collection the surrogate nature of detecting cervical HPV DNA to predict cervical disease This ultimately meant a relatively diverse test of screening tests, participants and results were lumped together to give a summary result of test accuracy. This means the pooled result may not actually be a good representation of the underlying studies as they are not a uniform group. The BMJ editorial summed up how future research could address many of these limitations. "If serious consideration is to be given to using urine HPV testing in cervical screening programmes, then further evaluation is essential, including an adequately powered, high-quality prospective study comparing urine testing with vaginal self-sampling and reporting the detection of high grade CIN [pre-cancer...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Medical practice Source Type: news