Point-of-Care Workable in Developing Countries: HPV in Self-Collected Specimens

Point-of-care testing appears workable even under highly difficult circumstances—specifically, when evaluated among women in Papua New Guinea, who are at risk for becoming infected with human papillomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer, according to Andrew Vallely of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his collaborators. Moreover, self-sampling by these women provides specimens that screen as accurately as do cervical samples that clinicians obtained, these investigators note. They call this finding “critical” for developing same-day, screening-and-treatment procedures for women in this and other developing countries. Details appeared April 13, 2016 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (doi:10.1128/JCM.00529–16).