Implementing human papillomavirus testing in a public health hospital: challenges and opportunities

Robust evidence now supports human papillomavirus (HPV) testing as a more effective option to screening and as more sensitive than cytology in detecting high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia . Our goal was to analyze the performance of the Hybrid Capture II (HC2) assay for high-risk HPV (hrHPV) in women undergoing gynecological examination at a public health hospital as part of the evaluation of HPV screening as an alternative or complement to cytology.

This analysis is a subset of a cross-sectional study carried out at a large public hospital serving a predominantly low-resource population. A total of 705 women were enrolled; the sensitivity and specificity of each test were estimated and compared.

The analysis identified 272 hrHPV-positive women (mean age 36.3 years) and 433 hrHPV-negative women (mean age 41.2 years). HPV testing showed a significantly increased sensitivity of the HC2 assay versus cytology (84.5 vs. 69.7%; p < 0.0001) but a lower specificity (49.90 vs. 88.78%; p < 0.0001).

The combination of both methods seems to be useful in improving detection of cervical lesions.