Self-Sampling for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) at Well Women Appointments

The American Cancer Society estimates that 4,170 women in the United States (US) will die from cervical cancer in 2018. Screening can reduce cancer mortality by (1) detecting malignancies when they are more treatable and (2) for some tests, identifying precancerous lesions for removal. Guidelines recommend cytology and/or human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for cervical cancer screening among women ages 30-65 years, but screening rates are suboptimal. To help bridge these gaps in screening, HPV self-sampling would be an alternative to clinical screening. However, there are concerns about the comparability and acceptability of self-sampling kits. The impact of the proposed project is to compare HPV self-screening results with Pap smear results and clinician-collected HPV tests to ultimately improve the uptake of HPV screening. This study will be conducted in a normal risk population. Subjects who have an upcoming well-woman appointment will be identified from Penn State Health, Department of Family and Community Medicine, clinic schedules. Clinicians who are a part of the study team will identify these patients two weeks prior to their appointment and send their information to a study coordinator, who will then call these patients to provide more information and assess their interest in participating. Patients who schedule within the two week period or were not contacted by a study team member for any reason will be given a card with general information about the study at their well-woman visit so that these women can contact a study team member if they are interested. A total of 197 participants will be recruited into this study. Interested participants will be screened for eligibility over the phone and sent a self-sampling kit through the mail with a Summary Explanation of Research form, instructions, and pre-paid mailer to return the kit. Participants may collect their sample two weeks before or after their well-woman visit. A study team member will contact the participants at different time points within the 28 day window to determine whether the sample was collected and to administer the follow-up survey.