Clinical performance of DNA and RNA based HPV tests for test of cure (TOC) post treatment for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) - a retrospective study.

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HPV testing as a "test of cure" (TOC) of women treated for cervical high-grade lesions can support and inform appropriate clinical management pathways. However, there is a lack of studies that report the discrete performance of different HPV assays in this context, including HPV mRNA based assays. To address this, we performed an analysis of the clinical performance of two hrHPV assays in the (TOC) setting; the recently launched DNA based Alinity m HR HPV (Abbott Molecular) and RNA based Aptima HPV assay (Hologic). Using a retrospective case-control design, two panels of archived cervical liquid based cytology samples, originally taken as per routine TOC protocols in Scotland were assessed. Each panel contained 63 cases, where cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2 or worse (CIN2+) was detected and 160 controls (women with no CIN2+ and two subsequent cytology negative results (minimum) 3 years apart or women who had histologically confirmed ≤CIN1). All samples were previously tested using the RealTime High Risk HPV assay (Abbott Molecular) as per national TOC protocol. Panel A and Panel B were tested using Alinity and Aptima assay respectively. Both assays showed similar performance to the original RealTime assay. Aptima had sensitivity for CIN2+ of 96.8% (95% CI: 89.0- 99.6) compared to RealTime (93.7% (95% CI: 84.5 - 98.2)). Alinity had sensitivity for CIN2+ of 92.1% (95% CI: 82.4- 97.4) compared to RealTime (98.4% (95% CI: 91.5- 99.95)). Both mRNA based and DNA based HPV tests show robust performance for the monitoring of residual disease post-treatment.