Evaluation of the effectiveness of high-risk human papilloma self-sampling test for cervical cancer screening in Bolivia

Background In Bolivia the incidence and mortality rates of uterine cervix cancer are the highest in America. The main factor contributing to this situation is the difficulty of establishing and maintaining quality prevention programs based on cytology. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of HR-HPV testing on self-collected samples to detect cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia and identify the best combination of screening tests. Methods A total of 469 women, divided in two groups, were included in this study. The first group included 362 women that underwent three consecutively primary screening tests: self-collected sampling for HR-HPV detection, conventional cervical cytology and visual inspection under acetic acid (VIA). The second group included 107 women referred with a positive HR-HPV test that underwent conventional cervical cytology and VIA. The presence of high grade intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2+) or invasive cancer was verified by colposcopy and biopsy. Result In the screening group the sensitivity to detect high grade intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2+) or invasive cancer were 100, 76, 44% for the VIA, HR-HPV test and cytology, respectively. In the referred group, the sensitivity to detect high grade intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2+) or invasive cancer by VIA and cytology were 100 and 81%, respectively. Conclusions VIA and HR-HPV self-sampling were the best combination to detect CIN2+ lesions. Cytology analysis gave the poorest performance.