Re: Emerging Technologies and Cervical Cancer

Extract

We are concerned about possible overinterpretation of the editorial by Follen and Richards-Kortum (1) and our article, “Human Papillomavirus Testing for Triage of Women With Cytologic Evidence of Low-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions: Baseline Data From a Randomized Trial” (2). Our results indicated a lack of utility for human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing among a population of relatively young women referred for well-defined cytologic diagnoses of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSILs). The cases of LSIL were overwhelmingly HPV DNA positive, confirming their etiologic association with HPV but limiting the role of viral testing for this cytologic diagnosis. As pointed out in our article and reiterated in the accompanying editorial, these results apply only to LSIL and not to the more common equivocal diagnosis of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS). We are actively studying the role of HPV DNA testing in the triage ASCUS. These data will be presented over the next few months in a series of publications.