Effective screening for cervical cancer through large-scale HPV self-testing

Self-testing for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) - the virus that causes cervical cancer - is as effective at detecting cancer as a conventional smear test (cytology screening) even when scaled up to test large populations.Researchers from Queen Mary University of London conducted a pilot study of 100,242 Mexican women - the largest study of its kind - aged 25-75 and from low-income backgrounds. Around 11% of women tested positive for HPV (10,863 women).However, when self-testing was rolled out on this scale, the number of women referred to clinics for follow-up tests rapidly increased.