Patient vs. Clinician Collection of Cervical Samples

Screening with Pap smears has substantially reduced the prevalence of cervical carcinoma. Further reduction could be possible if a screening method that obviated the need for an expensive medical examination were available and equally reliable. These investigators evaluated the feasibility of patient self-collection of cervical samples for cytology and human papillomavirus testing among 334 women who were at high risk for cervical cancer and were seeking colposcopic examination.

For self-collection of cervical samples, each woman (alone in an examination room) inserted a soft endocervical collection brush (Cytobrush) 5 to 6 cm into her vagina, rotated it 5 times, and then placed it in a methanol buffer solution. Immediately after self-collec…