‘epigenetics-based’ cervical cancer test tagged posts

A new test for cervical cancer was found to detect all of the cancers in a randomised clinical screening trial of 15,744 women, outperforming both the current Pap smear and human papillomavirus (HPV) test at a reduced cost, according to a study led by Queen Mary University of London.

The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, compared a new ‘epigenetics-based’ cervical cancer test with Pap smear and HPV tests, and investigated how well it predicted the development of cervical cancer up to five years in advance in a large study of women aged 25-65 in Canada.

As opposed to checking for patterns in the DNA genetic code itself that are indicative of the HPV virus, the new test looks at the naturally-occurring chemical markers that app...