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YouScreen trial provides evidence DIY HPV tests ‘a gamechanger for cervical screening’

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Published: 
18 July 2024

The study invited patients from GP practices across North London with researchers predicting that being able to take their sample at home could help over a million more women over the next three years to have a cervical screening.

Women could be offered DIY cervical screening tests on the NHS, after research found self-testing at home significantly improved screening rates. It marks the first-time self-sampling was offered within the NHS cervical screening programme and is the largest trial of self-sampling for cervical cancer in the UK to date. The self-sampling kits could be used either at GP practices or in the privacy and comfort of people’s homes.

Cervical cancer is the 14th most common cancer affecting women in Britain. About 13 high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV) are known to cause 99.7% of all cervical cancers. About 3,200 women in the UK are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year, of whom 850 die from it.

The latest figures show cervical screening attendance is declining, with nearly a third of women in England – particularly younger women, those from minority ethnic backgrounds and deprived areas – not taking up their most recent test. Women might choose not to go to a screening because of embarrassment, worries it will hurt and lack of convenient appointments.

Published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, the trial studied 27,000 women who were at least six months overdue for their cervical screening and found that DIY kits, especially those directly given to women by their GP surgery, could significantly increase their uptake of the screening.

The study calculated that expanding self-sampling in England could increase national screening coverage from 69.9% to 77.3%, which would lead to more than 1 million additional women being screened every three years in England.

Amanda Pritchard, the head of NHS England, has pledged to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 through screening and vaccination.

Dr Anita Lim, the lead author of the study and a senior research fellow at King’s College London said:

“Self-sampling has been hailed as a gamechanger for cervical screening and we now have evidence in a UK population to show that it really is”.

“It’s really encouraging that we received self-samples from groups that have been historically underserved including people from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds, LGBTQI+, people with learning disabilities and victims of sexual violence.”

NHS England’s director of screening and vaccination, Deborah Tomalin, said the NHS would assess whether self-sampling could be rolled out in England:

“It’s extremely promising that this study suggests simple DIY swab tests could have a really positive impact in supporting more women to take part in cervical screening from their own homes, and the NHS will now be working with the UK National Screening Committee to consider the feasibility of rolling this out more widely across England.”

The trial was led by King’s College London in partnership with NHS Cancer Alliances in North Central and North East London, NHS England and the NHS Cervical Screening Programme. This work was funded by the Cancer Alliances for north central and east London, with additional supportive funding from Cancer Research UK.

Further Information on the study findings is available from the following:

King’s College London: Self-sampling HPV kits could screen an extra million people for cervical cancer

Cancer Research UK: HPV self-sampling could help screen one million more women for cervical cancer

BBC: DIY kits may see million more cervical-cancer tests

The Guardian: Women in England could be offered DIY cervical screening tests on NHS

 

 

 

Image: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases