Massimo Origoni, Guia Carminati, Chiara Gelardi, Francesca Occhi and Chiara Stefani
Prevention of Cervical Cancer in Women: Human Papillomavirus DNA Testing in Atypical Pap Smears
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is definitely recognized as the necessary cause for the development of cancer of the uterine cervix and the detection of HPV-DNA in cervical samples is demonstrated to own a significantly higher sensitivity towards preneoplastic lesions than conventional cytology (Pap test). Screening, management of atypical Pap tests and follow up of treated patients, represent the optimal settings where HPV-DNA testing has been demonstrated of clinical value. Atypical Pap tests account for cases in which the cytological alterations cannot clearly be attributed neither to negative nor to positive cytology; in these cases HPV-DNA testing has been demonstrated to have a sensitivity very close to 100% in identifying patients with an histologically proven intraepithelial preneoplastic lesion of high grade (CIN2-CIN3).