IARC Recognizes HPV testing as part of cervical cancer screening.

2004 JUN 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Digene Corporation reported that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, has issued an assessment of available medical technologies for screening women for cervical cancer, including testing for human papillomavirus with Digene's Hybrid Capture technology.

The IARC evaluation, written by a panel of international experts, states that "there is sufficient evidence that testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) can reduce cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates."

The IARC paper notes that the recognition that HPV infections are a necessary cause of cervical cancer has "profound implications for cancer prevention."

The agency's paper also observes that a woman can be considered virtually free of cervical cancer risk in the absence of persistent infection with high-risk types of HPV. Thus, IARC says, the use of a test for "high-risk HPV types in screening and patient management is justified."

The report also recommends that health professionals and the population at large be educated on HPV and its connections with cervical cancer.

Thomas Wright, Jr., MD, associate professor of pathology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, was one of the IARC panelists who developed the assessment, and spoke on HPV testing at the opening day of the 52nd Annual Clinical Meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, where more than 10 presentations highlighted the topic.

"A key advantage of HPV testing is its high negative predictive value. This allows women to be certain that when the test is negative they don't have cervical disease. In contrast, the sensitivity of the ...