New Test Far Better Than Pap Smears In Cervical Cancer Screening

A recent Italian study led by Guglielmo Ronco, a cancer epidemiologist at the Centre for Cancer Prevention in Turin, has determined that a new cervical cancer test beats out the accuracy of the conventional pap smears we undergo annually. Researchers found this new test to be more precise in detecting pre-cancerous lesions, in addition to giving far fewer false positives. Pap smears on the other hand give too many false positives– meaning the test results show a woman potentially has cancerous or pre-cancerous changes when they really don’t.

Ronco and his team reported in the journal Lancet Oncology that the traditional test for the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is to blame for the majority of cervical cancers, was used in the study, but was combined with a new test that indicates the presence of cancer-causing activity in cells.

This simple test for P16INK4A, which is a certain protein, gave a biomarker showing cell changes that indicated a woman likely has dangerous pre-cancerous lesions. “The marker shows there was some sort of disruption by the HPV virus. Only a small minority of women who have an HPV infection actually develop cancer. The challenge is to find out who are at higher risk of developing cancer,” explained Ronco.

For the study, researchers collected cervical cell samples from women who had already tested positive for the HPV virus. Most of these women had undergone a colposcopy exam, which is a close cervical exam using a specialized magnifying instrument. Next, they tested for the P16INK4A protein in over 1,100 of the women.

The researchers found that testing for the protein, which is more active in cervical-cancer cells, helped identify 88 percent of those who had cancer-causing lesions, with far fewer false positives! In addition, the refined test also identified 50 percent more of the lesions than pap smears and required fewer women to have a colposcopy exam referral.