Women may soon see the smear disappear, a review recommended today every three years from 25 to 65 years to screen for cervical cancer. In any case, the Haute Autorité de Santé has just published recommendations to this effect. These experts now recommend that a new test replace it for those over 30, the HPV test. A test that is already preferred in first intention in the Netherlands and in some regions in Italy in particular. So what is this new test, what could this change for women?
Detection further upstream. For women, it does not change anything: the collection in the gynecologist is always the same way, vaginally. But then, it is the analysis of this laboratory test that is different. With the smear, the one we have been doing for years in France, we look at whether the cells taken from the cervix are normal or abnormal, ie pre-cancerous, for example. Whereas with the HPV test, there is a detection further upstream. It allows to say if there is a possible infection with a virus at high risk of cervical cancer.
>> READ ALSO - For the first time in France, a woman has been transplanted from a uterus
"For the woman, it will not change anything." In fact, this test, it is already done today to the Women, but in second intention, after a smear, and hence now these experts recommend to do it first because it is more effective, precise Anne Isabelle Poullie of the HAS: "It has a better sensitivity.It has a longer protection period against pre-cancerous lesions.This means that we can lengthen the duration between two screenings.Today, the duration was three years, with the HPV test it could be five years.For the woman, it will not change anything.
Now it's up to Medicare to see how this test will be reimbursed. A priori 100% as the smear, which remains the reference, for women 25 to 30 years. However, for those aged 30 to 65, this new HPV test should gradually replace it in the course of 2020.