Offering Self-Sampling to Non-Attendees of Organized Primary HPV Screening: When Do Harms Outweigh the Benefits?

Human papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling might be a promising tool to increase effectiveness of primary HPV screening programs when offered to non-attendees. However, effectiveness could decrease if regular attendees "switch" to self-sampling, because self-sampling test characteristics may be inferior. We examined under which conditions the harms would outweigh the benefits.

The MISCAN-cervix model was used to estimate quality-adjusted life years (QALY) gained and costs of offering HPV self-sampling to non-attendees. We varied the relative CIN2(+) sensitivity and specificity (self-sampling vs. regular sampling), extra attendance, risk of extra attendees, and the switching percentage.

Without switching, offering self-sampling is (cost-)effective under every studied condition. If the attendance due to self-sampling increases by ≥6 percentage points, higher primary background risk women (unscreened women who will never attend regular screening) attend and the relative CIN2(+) sensitivity and specificity are ≥0.95; it is (cost-)effective to offer self-sampling to non-attendees, even if all regular attendees switch. If the relative sensitivity decreases to 0.90 combined with either a 3 percentage points extra attendance or the absence of higher primary background risk women, QALYs are lost when more than 30% to 20% of the regular attendees switch.

Offering self-sampling will gain health effects if the relative CIN2(+) sensitivity is ≥0.95, unscreened attendees are recruited, and the total attendance increases by ≥6 percentage points. Otherwise, switching of regular attendees may decrease the total effectiveness of the program.

Self-sampling needs to be implemented with great care and advantages of office-based sampling need to be emphasized to prevent switching.