Concerns HPV testing could miss rare cancers

The revamped cervical screening program does not include some increasingly prevalent HPV subtypes
Jocelyn Wright
Professor Ian Hammond
Professor Ian Hammond.

Gynaecologists have flagged concerns that the switch to HPV DNA-based cervical screening means some rare cases of cancer or pre-cancerous lesions could be missed.

They have published a case series of three asymptomatic Australian women who returned negative HPV test results despite having high-grade abnormalities detected on cytology. Two cases were later found to be positive for HPV 53, classed as a ‘probable’ oncogenic subtype by WHO.