Complementary and Innovative Method in Genital HPV Testing for Cervical Cancer Prevention

Abstract

Abstract Considering actual SARS-COV 2 pandemic, the comfort and time of the female patient’ trend is to minimize the time spent in the doctor’s office, so that auto-testing is a solving problem in this context. This paper aims at the importance of self-collected urine and vaginal samples, since actual studies are showing that is a complementary method in HPV-testing and a screening method for prevention of cervical cancer. Genital HPV infection is responsible for approximately 99% of cervical cancers, and is considered a sexually transmitted disease. Given that eight out of ten patients have at least one episode of HPV infection in their lifetime, there is a need for a method of early detection of genital HPV infection. Cervical cancer is the second type of diagnosed cancer in the rank of genital cancers and the third leading cause of cancer death among the female population. In Romania, the frequency of cervical cancer and mortality caused by this type of cancer remains high. In 2018 Globocan, it was mentioned that the occurrence of cervical cancer in Romania was 8.6%, and the mortality was 19.5/10,000 women. Worldwide, the following have been implemented: primary prevention programmes (via immunization) and secondary prevention programmes – traditional cytological testing, to which co-tests have been added. In the co-testing sector, there has been found with an updated visa – the self-harvesting test, being considered a complementary and innovative method in genital HPV testing, which aims to: identify the presence of highly oncogenic HPV strains with a marked sensitivity. Self-harvesting testing aims to: signal the presence of highly oncogenic strains, extrapolation can lead to early identification of the number of cases of precancerous lesions of the cervix and implicitly of cervical cancer.