“A handful of health care companies are preparing to introduce a new model for cervical cancer screening and prevention that would circumvent the speculum: self-collection, in which a woman swabs her vagina in the doctor’s office, using only a narrow swab that looks similar to the one used during a Covid test. Once the sample is collected, a lab would test it for the strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, most likely to cause cervical cancer.

A key change in HPV screening has made the technique possible: Labs are now able to test using samples taken from the vaginal walls, as opposed to from the cervix itself.

In introducing self-collection, the United States will be following countries including Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, which have gradually introduced self-sampling for cervical cancer screening in recent years, with great success in its adoption.

Two decades of research suggest this method is as effective at preventing cervical cancer as traditional Pap tests for women 25 and older.”

From New York Times.