Disagreement between Human Papillomavirus Assays: An Unexpected Challenge for the Choice of an Assay in Primary Cervical Screening

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Matejka Rebolj
  • Sarah Preisler
  • Ditte Møller Ejegod
  • Carsten Rygaard
  • Lynge, Elsebeth
  • Jesper Bonde

We aimed to determine the disagreement in primary cervical screening between four human papillomavirus assays: Hybrid Capture 2, cobas, CLART, and APTIMA. Material from 5,064 SurePath samples of women participating in routine cervical screening in Copenhagen, Denmark, was tested with the four assays. Positive agreement between the assays was measured as the conditional probability that the results of all compared assays were positive given that at least one assay returned a positive result. Of all 5,064 samples, 1,679 (33.2%) tested positive on at least one of the assays. Among these, 41% tested positive on all four. Agreement was lower in women aged ≥ 30 years (30%, vs. 49% at <30 years), in primary screening samples (29%, vs. 38% in follow-up samples), and in women with concurrent normal cytology (22%, vs. 68% with abnormal cytology). Among primary screening samples from women aged 30-65 years (n = 2,881), 23% tested positive on at least one assay, and 42 to 58% of these showed positive agreement on any compared pair of the assays. While 4% of primary screening samples showed abnormal cytology, 6 to 10% were discordant on any pair of assays. A literature review corroborated our findings of considerable disagreement between human papillomavirus assays. This suggested that the extent of disagreement in primary screening is neither population- nor storage media-specific, leaving assay design differences as the most probable cause. The substantially different selection of women testing positive on the various human papillomavirus assays represents an unexpected challenge for the choice of an assay in primary cervical screening, and for follow up of in particular HPV positive/cytology normal women.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere86835
JournalPLOS ONE
Volume9
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages12
ISSN1932-6203
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2014

    Research areas

  • Adult, Aged, Biological Assay, Denmark, Early Detection of Cancer, Female, Humans, Mass Screening, Middle Aged, Papillomaviridae, Papillomavirus Infections, Young Adult

ID: 135653898