Overview of the European and North American studies on HPV testing in primary cervical cancer screening

Several studies suggest that HPV testing is more sensitive than cytology in primary cervical screening. These studies had different designs and were reported in different ways. Individual patient data were collected for all European and North American studies in which cytology was routinely performed and HPV testing was included as an additional parallel test. More than 60,000 women were included. The sensitivity and specificity of HPV testing were compared with routine cytology, both overall and for ages