CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
January 2014—Ventana Medical Systems announced the positive findings of the Primary ASC-US LSIL Marker Study (PALMS) that have been published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Ikenberg H, et al. 2013;105[20]:1550–1557).
The pan-European study of more than 27,000 women from five European countries was performed to estimate the diagnostic performance of the CINtec PLUS cytology test in screening for cervical precancers compared with more traditional screening methods like Pap cytology.
The study assessed whether the test, which uses biomarkers p16 and Ki-67 (indicative of oncogenic HPV), provides high sensitivity and specificity for high-grade precancerous cervical lesions. The results showed that when compared with Pap cytology testing, the CINtec PLUS cytology test was more effective than Pap cytology in detecting precancerous lesions. Pap cytology had a sensitivity of 67.5 percent while the CINtec PLUS test had a sensitivity of 86.7 percent.
“The results of the PALMS confirms data from previous studies which have shown that incorporating the CINtec PLUS test in cervical cancer screening programs can provide real benefit to both clinicians and their patients,” Christine Bergeron, MD, PhD, Laboratoire Cerba, Cergy, Paris, PALMS study investigator and publication coauthor, said in a statement. “In young women, where HPV infection rates may be high, the CINtec PLUS test could be very useful to identify those women with clinically significant precancers who may be missed by the lower sensitivity Pap test. In older women, combining the CINtec PLUS test with HPV DNA testing would make a lot of sense.”
Ventana Medical Systems, 520-877-7288