Sammanfattning
A total of 2816 women 30-58 years old, who had not attended organised screening for 6 years or more, were recruited. They were offered self-sampling at home (Qvintip®, Aprovix AB, Uppsala, Sweden) and recommended to send the collected vaginal fluid to a laboratory for analysis of the presence of high-risk HPV (Hybrid Capture 2 method). Totally 40% of the women accepted home sampling. These women disclosed a relatively high prevalence of high-risk HPV, which decreased with age, from 11.1% in women 30-39 years old to 2.9% in women 50 years or older. Follow-up disclosed histological CIN 2-3 lesions in 40% of the women with a persistent HPV infection, corresponding to 2.0% of the total number of participating women. The sensitivity of a single smear to detect the histological CIN 2-3 lesions were only 50%, even if all abnormal smears (ASCUS – CIN 3) were included. The use of self-sampling at home in combination with testing for high-risk HPV increases the participation rate of the organised screening and detects almost twice as many women with pre-malignant cell alterations (CIN 2-3) in comparison with a single cytological smear.