The clinical performance of APTIMA human papillomavirus and Hybrid Capture 2 assays in the triage of lesser abnormal cervical cytologies

OBJECTIVE: This study was performed to evaluate the clinical performance of APTIMA human papillomavirus (AHPV) assay and Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2) assay in screening for cervical disease, especially in women with atypical squamous cell of undetermined significance (ASC-US) and low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL). METHODS: A total of 411 women diagnosed with ASC-US or LSIL were referred and further triaged by HC2 test. Prior to colposcopy, liquid-based cytology specimens were collected for the AHPV assay. Sensitivity and specificity were established based on the histological findings of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). RESULTS: In all 411 subjects, the positive detection rate of AHPV assay was 70.8% (95% confidence interval [CI], 66.4 to 75.2), which was significantly lower than the positive detection rate of 94.9% obtained using HC2 test (95% CI, 92.3 to 96.8). Only one CIN 3-positive case was detected among the 120 AHPV-negative women, which was then confirmed by Pap smear test to be LSIL. The sensitivities of AHPV and HC2 for CIN 3 were similar (94.1% and 100%, respectively). However, AHPV showed a significantly higher specificity than HC2 test (30.2% and 5.3%, respectively; p<0.001). CONCLUSION: AHPV assay is effective in identifying CIN 3-positive cases because of its high specificity and lower false-negative rate. The use of AHPV for the triage of ASC-US and LSIL might help to reduce the referral rate of colposcopy during cervical cancer screening.