Self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing as cervical cancer screening option. Experience from the LAMS study

To compare Hybrid Capture II (HC2) in detecting high-risk (HR) HPV in patient-collected vaginal samples with those obtained using gynaecologist collected samples. Patients were submitted to Pap smears, visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and HC2 for hr-HPV. A total of 1,081 HC2 tests for HR-HPV were performed: 770 (71.2%) samples were collected by a physician and 311 (28.8%) were self-collected by the patients. In detecting any cervical lesion, the sensitivity of HC2 collected by a physician was higher (92.86%) than that (37.5%) in the self-sampling group. Negative predictive value (NPV) was high for both, 99.69% and 93.75%, respectively. Using the CIN2 cutoff, performance of HC2 was significantly improved: 92.9% and 62.5%, respectively. HC2 specificity for any cervical lesion and for CIN2 or higher were close to 90% in both groups. Self-sampled HPV testing is a powerful option to increase the detection of cervical lesions in women segregated from prevention programs.