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 "Awareness of HPV has tended to be low but has been
rising since the introduction of testing and vaccination," said Jo
Waller, the study's senior author.
People seem to be more aware of HPV vaccination than testing,
however, which is not surprising given the publicity around the
vaccine, added Waller, a public health researcher at University
College London.
The Pap test, used to look for abnormal cell changes in the cervix,
is much older and generally familiar to most people, but the newer
HPV test looks for the virus that causes those changes, Waller said.
The HPV test was only introduced in the 1990s and it's used a little
differently in each of the countries that were included in the new
study, Waller pointed out.
In the U.S., HPV testing is used as a screening tool in women over
the age of 30. In both the U.S. and the UK, HPV testing is also used
along with the Pap test to determine the next steps in treatment — for instance, biopsy.
In the UK and Australia, the HPV test is also used to monitor
treatment results.
Waller said that many studies have attempted to assess the public's
knowledge about HPV and HPV testing, but they all used different
methods and asked questions in different ways, so it's hard to
compare the findings.
"We wanted to use the same questionnaire to look at knowledge across
three countries where HPV testing is used in different ways," she
told Reuters Health in an email.
The researchers used an online survey to find out if participants in
the U.S., UK and Australia were aware of HPV testing and HPV in
general.
The first question asked was 'Before today, had you ever heard of
HPV?' Participants who responded "yes" were then directed to 15
general questions about HPV.
Participants were then asked 'Have you ever heard of HPV testing?'
Those who responded 'yes' were asked six more questions about the
test.
Of the 2,409 men and women who answered the survey, about 61 percent
had heard of HPV, Waller's team reports in the journal Sexually
Transmitted Infections.
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Among those who had heard of the virus, only half were aware of
the HPV test. Awareness of the HPV test was higher in the U.S. than
in the UK and Australia.
The participants who had heard of HPV testing, on average, answered
less than half of questions about details of testing correctly.
Overall, women knew more than men.
Most of the survey participants did know, for example, that the HPV
test can be done at the same time as the Pap test, and that a
positive HPV test doesn't mean a woman will definitely get cervical
cancer.
But they didn't know a negative HPV test indicates a low risk of
cervical cancer. Few also knew that the HPV test is not an indicator
of whether the HPV vaccine is needed.
"It's also important for people to understand that although the HPV
vaccine protects against HPV, it's still really important for women
to have screening, to check for (virus) types not covered by the
vaccine," Waller said.
Women who are screened and found not to have the HPV virus should be
reassured that their risk of developing cervical cancer over the
next five years is extremely low, Waller added. ___
Source: http://bit.ly/1aLPRNE
Sexually
Transmitted Infections, online Jan. 9, 2014.
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