HPV cervical screening test switch €˜effective’, says pilot study

Testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection as the first step in analysing cervical screening samples is practical and more sensitive than the current programme, a new pilot study has confirmed. The research, published in The BMJ, also suggests that HPV primary testing could see the time between screenings extended to five years.  Plans are already underway to change the order in which samples are tested in the UK’s cervical screening programme. This would involve first testing samples for HPV, which is responsible for almost all cases of cervical cancer. Weilin Wu, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said that the study backs