DH introduces human papillomavirus testing and calls on public to undergo regular cervical cancer screening
29.3.2023

The Department of Health (DH) today (March 29) reminded adult women who ever had sex to receive regular cervical cancer screening to reduce the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer. To enhance its cervical cancer screening services, the DH will introduce the human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, a screening test with higher sensitivity, for eligible female clients under its services. Starting from April 3, women aged 30 to 64 attending the DH's cervical screening service will receive HPV testing as the primary approach of cervical screening. The method of sample collection from the cervix through speculum examination by healthcare professionals remains the same. For primary HPV testing, the sample will be checked for certain high-risk types of HPV associated with cervical cancer and its pre-cancerous lesions. For women aged 25 to 29, the cervical cells collected using the same method will be tested by cervical cytology. The Cancer Expert Working Group on Cancer Prevention and Screening (CEWG) under the Cancer Coordinating Committee chaired by the Secretary for Health regularly reviews international and local evidence, and formulates recommendations on local cancer prevention and screening. The CEWG recommended women aged 25 to 64 who ever had sexual experience to have regular cervical cancer screening, and both HPV and cytology testings are proven effective methods for cervical screening. For women aged 30 to 64, HPV testing could be adopted as an alternative to cytology testing owing to the former's higher sensitivity for earlier detection of precancerous lesions and longer screening interval. Re-screening for HPV-negative persons is recommended for every five years. For women aged 25 to 29, in view of their higher prevalence of transient HPV infection and therefore a higher false positive rate resulting in unnecessary investigations arising from HPV testing, they were recommended to undergo cervical cancer screening by cervical cytology every three years, after two consecutive normal annual screenings. Cervical cancer was the seventh commonest female cancer in Hong Kong in 2020 and it was the eighth leading cause of cancer deaths among women in 2021. It is worth noting that the number of new cervical cancer cases has increased from 391 cases in 2011 to 556 cases in 2020. Although cervical screening has proven to be effective in preventing cervical cancer, the latest figures from the Report of Population Health Survey 2020-22 by the DH revealed that only around half of the eligible women have ever had a cervical screening. Most people with HPV and/or early cervical cancer experience no symptoms at all, underpinning the importance of screening for early detection of the diseases. The spokesman for the DH urged women due for cervical screening to schedule one with their family doctors, gynaecologists, non-governmental organisations or the Maternal and Child Health Centres and Woman Health Centres of the DH. The spokesman reminded the public that to lower the risk of cervical cancer, in addition to regular cervical screening, they should avoid unhealthy behaviours such as smoking, having sexual intercourse at an early age and having multiple sexual partners, and women of suitable ages should have HPV vaccination before sexual debut. For more information on cervical cancer and screening, please visit www.cervicalscreening.gov.hk/en/index.html .