title: A first survey of HPV-based screening in routine cervical cancer screening in Italy.
abstract: Pilot HPV-based cervical screening programmes have recently started in Italy, partly on the strength of a large randomized trial. The Ministry of Health recommended that regions shift toward HPV-based screening in early 2013 and provided guidelines for its application (stand-alone HPV testing by validated methods, cytological triage of HPV positives, beginning at age 30-35, 5-year intervals). A first survey on the 2012 activity was conducted in 2013. In 2012, 19 Italian organized cervical screening programmes from 10 regional programmes invited 311,856 women (8.0%of all women invited for cervical screening in 2012 in Italy) for HPV-based screening; 41.5% complied, with a decreasing North-South trend. Among screened women, 7.9% (range 4.3%-13.9%) were HPV positive, decreasing to 6.6% (range 4.0%-12.4%) when considering women aged 35-64 years. Among HPV positive women, 34.8%(with high variability between programmes: range 11.1%-59.3%) were judged to have ASC-US or more severe cytology (5.3%ASC-US, 26.6%L-SIL, 5.2% H-SIL). Out of all screened women, those referred to colposcopy based on HPV and cytology results were 2.9% (range 0.6%-4.8%), whereas they were 2.0% when considering only women aged 35-64 years.
authors.affiliation: AOU Città della salute e della scienza, CPO Piemonte, Torino. guglielmo.ronco@cpo.it.
authors.forename: Guglielmo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ronco
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Giorgi Rossi
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Giubilato
authors.forename: Annarosa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Del Mistro
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zappa
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Carozzi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003127:Colposcopy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology; D014626:Vaginal Smears; D002578:Uterine Cervical Dysplasia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology