Disease & Medicine

Cervical cancer remains a leading cause of cancer death among women in many countries despite the proven effectiveness of HPV-based screening. Expanding access through non-invasive, acceptable, and scalable methods is considered essential to achieving global elimination targets. A large population-based study from Hubei Province, China, reports that human papillomavirus (HPV) testing using menstrual blood collected via a specially designed sanitary Mini pad performs comparably to clinician-collected cervical samples for detecting high-grade cervical lesions.

Self-collection for HPV testing performs as well as clinician sampling, expands access for underserved women, and may significantly speed cervical cancer elimination.
In settings with established cervical screening programmes, most cervical cancer cases occur among women who do not attend screening (1). Many programmes take years to implement fully and often reach underserved populations only slowly (2). If HPV-based screening is difficult to roll out, cervical cancer elimination may be delayed for decades. Self-collection enables rapid and more equitable implementation of HPV screening (3,4), thereby accelerating progress toward cervical cancer elimination. Australia aims to achieve elimination between 2028 and 2035, and widespread adoption of self-collection may allow this goal to be reached earlier.