Hologic (NSDQ:HOLX) — a major company in the Pap and human papillomavirus (HPV) testing space — is criticizing the American Cancer Society over new cervical cancer screening recommendations that prefer simply doing HPV tests every five years.
“Although all the screening tests are good at finding cancer and pre-cancer, primary HPV testing is better at finding them than a Pap test done alone. Plus, primary HPV testing does not lead to more follow-up tests for abnormal areas that turn out to not to be pre-cancer,” Sandy McDowell, senior editor of research at ACS, explained in a July 30 blog post.
“In the US, the expectation is that over time fewer people will have a co-test or Pap test alone as the primary HPV test become more widely available.”
Hologic in a July 31 statement said it was “disappointed” by the new guidelines — noting that the cervical cancer rate has fallen by more than 70% since the Pap test was introduce…