Roles of liquid-based cytology and/or HPV DNA test in cervical cancer screening

Purpose To investigate the value and clinical significance of the liquid-based cytology and HPV DNA test in the cervical cancer screening. Methods The study population comprised 597 patients at the First People's Hospital of Jiangxia District,Wuhan. Specimen collection was started in March 2008 and was completed in May 2009. Both the patients were detected with the liquid-based cytology,HPV DNA test (in situ hybridization) and biopsy. Histopathological examination was used as golden standard to evaluate the applicative value and clinical significance of the liquid-based cytology and HPV DNA test in the cervical cancer screening. All the tests were performed in a blinded manner. Results The sensitivity,specificity,accuracy,positive predictive value,negative predictive value and Youden index of each diagnostic test were listed,respectively,as follows:86.54%,93.94%,93.30%,57.69%,98.65% and 0.805 for liquid-based cytology,and 78.84%,85.69%,85.09%,34.45%,97.70% and 0.645 for HPV DNA test. The sensitivity and specificity of combined examination of both tests were 96.15% and 80.36%. Conclusion The sensitivity and specificity of liquid-based cytology are more than 85%,which reduces the false negative rate of screening; the sensitivity of HPV DNA test is low,but the specificity is relatively higher. A reasonable strategy of the screening should be adopted according to the practical conditions.