In this episode we talk to Dr Anita Lim who is a Senior Research Fellow, School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King’s College London.

Paper: Non-speculum clinician-taken samples for HPV testing: a cross sectional study in older women

https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2021.0708

Speculum use is a significant barrier to cervical screening and can become particularly uncomfortable after the menopause. Self-sampling is an obvious solution but does not appeal to all women. Having a doctor or nurse take a sample without a speculum is another possibility but the test performance has not yet been examined. We found HPV testing on non-speculum clinician-taken samples to have comparable test performance to self-sampling, representing a promising new approach for cervical screening.