HPV detection-based cervical cancer screening program in low-resource setting: lessons learnt from a community-based demonstration project in India.

PURPOSE: A demonstration project was conducted to assess feasibility of implementing HPV detection-based cervical cancer screening in primary care settings in India and to generate local evidence on feasibility and effectiveness of HPV detection in primary screening.
METHODS: The project was implemented by setting up screening clinics at primary health centers. Eligible women were screened by HPV DNA test (Hybrid capture 2). All samples were processed and tested in a single laboratory. Colposcopy services were provided to screen-positive women at the same community clinics. Project utilized services of community health workers for community mobilization, recall of screen-positive and disease-positive women. Women with ≥CIN2 diagnosis were treated at tertiary hospital.
RESULTS: Totally, 44,110 women were screened and HPV positivity was 4.7 %. Compliance to recall of HC2-positive women for colposcopy was 78 %. Detection rate of CIN3+ by HPV test was 3.9/1,000 women. Compliance of women to treatment was 80.1 %. However, compliance of HPV-positive women for follow-up at 1 year was poor (23.2 %). Concurrent use of VIA to screen the women did not have any advantage but increased number of unnecessary colposcopies and biopsies.
CONCLUSIONS: Our project demonstrated that it was possible to implement HPV detection-based screening using existing primary healthcare infrastructure. Performing colposcopy at primary setting is feasible, improves compliance and reduces over-treatment. In settings with low to moderately high HPV prevalence, direct referral of HPV-positive women is advisable. Community health workers can be effectively used for recalling the positive women.