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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowRoche Diagnostics is looking to a new screening tool to help women learn in a more private way if they are at increased risk for cervical cancer—a self-collection test to identify HPV.
With the test, a woman goes to a doctor’s office, clinic or other health care setting and collects her own vaginal sample, which is then analyzed with Roche’s cobas molecular instrument for the presence of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
For years, women have been screened for cervical cancer with a Pap test, in which a medical provider collects cervical cells. Roche’s self-collection test, one of the first of its kind, is designed to reach patients who may forgo traditional screening because of lack of access, past trauma or embarrassment.
“We hear so often that screening is incredibly important, but there is a lack of screening for people at risk of getting cervical cancer,” said Samantha Byrnes, scientific partner for sexual health and cervical cancer for Roche Diagnostics. “This is about access and making sure people have the preventable health care they deserve.”
Roche HPV self-collection tests can be prescribed by local doctors and clinicians and received at health care facilities such as a doctor’s office, lab or health service centers. Roche received FDA clearance last year for the test to be used in the United States.
The CDC also noted that cervical cancer was once a leading cause of female cancer deaths in the United States but with vaccines and screening is now one of the most preventable cancers.
In marketing the new test, Roche Diagnostics cited research that about half of those diagnosed with cervical cancer are patients who have never been screened.
The cobas HPV test is marketed in the United States from the Roche Diagnostics’ Indianapolis office and manufactured in Branchburg, New Jersey. Roche is based in Switzerland with its North American headquarters in Indianapolis.
Roche Diagnostics is sponsoring a symposium Wednesday at the first National HPV Conference. The conference, held in Indianapolis, features speakers who are using HPV self-collection tests. Roche also is a sponsor of the conference.
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