This study was undertaken to compare the diagnostic accuracy of HPV testing by hybrid capture II (HC-II) with conventional cervical smear cytology for squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL).
Patients, in whom conventional cytology, HC-II test and colposcopy-directed biopsy were done, formed the basis of this study.
Sensitivity and specificity of cytology for detection of H-SIL and above lesions was 93.33 and 83.49 per cent while for HC-II it was 93.33 and 90.83 per cent, respectively.
Interpretation & conclusion: The main utility of HC-II is in the triage of patients with cytology smear diagnosis of ASC-US, ASC-H or L-SIL, for referral to colposcopic examination.
As part of a large study examining screening for cervical cancer, this study was undertaken to compare the diagnostic accuracy of HPV testing by hybrid capture II (HC-II) with conventional cervical smear cytology.
Patients were called again for biopsy when either cytology report or HC-II was positive, if biopsy had not already been performed.
Specimen for HC-II was obtained in the same sitting, immediately after making the conventional cytology smear, using a conical brush and a vial containing the specimen transport medium (STM), both obtained from the manufacturer of HC-II (Digene Corporation, Maryland, USA).
HPV testing was done using HC-II assay (Digene Corporation, Maryland, USA) following the manufacturer's instructions.
HC-II testing: High-risk HPV infection was seen in 25 patients (18.80%).
This selective screening method was adopted to increase the yield of positive cases; so that the utility of HC-II could be evaluated without unnecessarily increasing the sample size.
