Urinary and Vaginal HPV Testing in Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer, caused by high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, poses a problem worldwide as it is the fourth most common female cancer. Fifty percent of all invasive cervical cancers occur among the 25% not attending cervical cancer screening. To reach these women, this project will contribute to the development of a novel and accurate urinary and vaginal screening tool, which allows women to collect the screening samples at home. This project tests the hypotheses: 1) urinary HPV testing is non-inferior to HPV testing on clinician-collected cervical samples for detection of high-grade cervical pre-cancer, 2) Vaginal HPV testing is non-inferior to HPV testing on clinician-collected cervical samples for detection of high-grade cervical pre-cancer and 3) DNA methylation testing is suitable as a colposcopy triage test among women with HPV-positive urine and/or vaginal samples to prevent unnecessary colposcopies and overtreatment of women without clinically meaningful HPV infections. If confirmed, urinary and vaginal HPV testing could revolutionize todays screening programs and keep Denmark at the forefront of cervical cancer prevention.