OBJECTIVES. To offer women in Kinshasa an alternative tool for cervical cancer screening by self-sampling with detection of high-risk (hr) HPV DNA.
A total of 190 women living in the municipality of Bandalungwa, aged 29-73, participated in the test. Women were individually informed at home by health care workers about the purpose of the test, the procedure, the follow-up, and eventual therapy. All interventions were free of charge. Samples were collected using EvalynR Brush (Rovers Medical Devices), and were analyzed by the Abbott RealTime High Risk HPV assay in the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology in Ghent, Belgium. In total 187 samples were analyzed.
Application of the Abbott assay resulted in 170 valid hrHPV determinations. hrHPV could be detected in 19% of these samples. HPV16 and HPV18 were present in 16% an 6% of the hrHPV-positive samples, respectively. The prevalence of hrHPV in this test was about five times higher than the prevalence of (pre)cancerous lesions (Bethesda grade LSIL and higher) found with cytology in comparable groups of women in Kinshasa (1,2). The finding of the rather low percentages of HPV16 and HPV18 is in agreement with earlier findings published for women with HIV-negative or unknown HIV serology (1,2).
Self-sampling is a valuable tool that facilitates access to cervical cancer screening in Kinshasa. Further research is needed to resolve the origin of differences between cytology and HPV DNA results.
1. Ali-Risasi C et al. Infect Agent Cancer 2015;10-20; 2. Ali-Risasi C. PhD thesis, University of Ghent, 2015)