An evaluation of clinical performance of FTA cards for HPV 16/18 detection using cobas 4800 HPV Test compared to dry swab and liquid medium

- First opportunity to investigate the clinical performance of two dry sampling media compared with traditional liquid based medium;.
- Find a high agreement of detecting high-risk HPV between FTA card and dry swab specimens;.
- Find a good clinical accuracy of CIN2+ for FTA card with subsequent HPV 16/18 genotyping;.
- Offer a potential alternative to liquid-based medium with dry sampler such as FTA card or dry swab in HPV-based cervical cancer screening.

BackgroundsEffective dry storage and transport media as an alternative to conventional liquid-based medium would facilitate the accessibility of women in the low-resource settings to human papillomavirus (HPV)- based cervical cancer screening.ObjectiveTo evaluate analytical and clinical performance of indicating FTA™ Elute Cartridge (FTA card) for the detection of HPV16/18 and cervical precancerous lesions and cancer compared to dry swab and liquid medium.Study designNinety patients with abnormal cytology and/or HPV infection were included for analysis. Three specimens of cervical exfoliated cells from each woman were randomly collected by FTA card, dry swab or liquid-based medium prior to colposcopy examination. The subsequent HPV DNA tests were performed on cobas 4800 HPV platform.Results and conclusionsHigh-risk HPV (hrHPV) positivity rate was 63.3%, 62.2% and 65.6% for samples collected by FTA card, dry swab and liquid medium, respectively. The overall agreements and kappa values for the detection of hrHPV, HPV 16 and HPV 18 between FTA card and liquid-based medium were 88.9% (κ = 0.76), 97.8% (κ = 0.94) and 100% (κ = 1.0),respectively; between FTA card and dry swab were 92.1% (κ = 0.83), 94.5% (κ = 0.87) and 100% (κ = 1.0), respectively. The performances of hrHPV tested by FTA card, dry swab, and liquid-based medium for detecting CIN2+ were comparable in terms of the sensitivity and specificity. The specificity of detection of CIN2+ by HPV16/18 increased by approximately 40% compared to hrHPV for any medium albeit at cost of a moderate loss of sensitivity. Dry medium might offer an alternative to conventional liquid-based medium in the HPV-based cervical cancer screening program especially in low-resource settings but still needs further evaluation.