WIKIMEDIA, ALEX_BROLLO
The Pap smear is widely considered the gold standard within the public health community as an effective means of detecting abnormal cellular changes caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer. But it now has a competitor. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week (April 24) approved a DNA-based test for the virus, developed by Roche.
“The potential benefit of [the HPV test] is that everybody that has a precancerous change or cervical cancer will have a positive test,” Kevin Ault, a physician and HPV researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, told CNN. “You’re not going to miss anybody.”
The test, called cobas, was first approved in 2011 to use as a follow on to a ...
