Triage for HPV screen-positives gets a boost
June 2024—When it comes to detecting cervical precancer (CIN3), p16/Ki-67 dual stain testing cuts down on the number of colposcopies compared with using Pap cytology to triage HPV-positive patients. “Using cytology [for triage], you need to do about 32 colposcopies to identify one cervical precancer [CIN3]. If you were to switch to dual stain, it cuts it in half,” says Thomas Lorey, MD, senior consultant and former director of laboratory services for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, from which much of the data underpinning the guidelines on cervical cancer screening and management have been collected. Dr. Lorey and others are coauthors of new clinical management dual stain test recommendations, released in March by the member organizations of the Enduring Consensus Cervical Cancer Screening and Management Guidelines effort. The new recommendations address only the Roche CINtec Plus Cytology test, which detects both p16 and Ki-67 and was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2020.