Roche trial demonstrates importance of HPV testing

Roche has conducted a new clinical trial which illustrates the potential importance of HPV testing in the detection of cervical cancer.

The pharmaceutical company’s Athena study was conducted in the US among more than 47,000 women and saw patients who had preciously undergone Papanicolau testing screened for the human papillomavirus genotypes HPV 16 and HPV 18.

It was found that ten per cent of patients who tested positive to these two genotypes had contracted cervical pre-cancer that had gone undetected during the Pap test process.

Daniel O’Day, chief operating officer for Roche Diagnostics, said this illustrates the limitations of using only Pap tests when screening for cervical cancer.

He added: “If more women were tested for high-risk HPV genotypes, specifically genotypes 16 and 18, more cervical pre-cancer could be found and treated earlier.”

Earlier this month, Roche published new clinical data from a phase III trial of the ovarian cancer drug Avastin, illustrating its efficacy when compared to chemotherapy alone.