Assessing the risk of cervical neoplasia in the post-HPV vaccination era

This review is based on the recent EUROGIN scientific session: Assessing risk of cervical cancer in the post-vaccination era, which addressed the demands of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)/squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL) triage now that the prevalence of vaccine-targeted oncogenic high-risk (hr) human papillomaviruses (HPVs) is decreasing. Change in the prevalence distribution of oncogenic HPV types that follows national HPV vaccination programs is setting the stage for loss of positive predictive value of conventional but possibly also new triage modalities. Understanding the contribution of the latter, most notably hypermethylation of cellular and viral genes in a new setting where most oncogenic HPV types are no longer present, requires studies on their performance in vaccinated women with CIN/SIL that are associated with nonvaccine HPV types. Lessons learned from this research may highlight the potential of cervical cells for risk prediction of all women's cancers.

Automated summary

This article is based on a recent scientific session that discussed the risk assessment of cervical cancer in the post-vaccination era. The study highlighted the impact of decreasing prevalence of vaccine-targeted high-risk HPV types on the triage methods for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)/squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL). The research emphasized the importance of evaluating new triage modalities in vaccinated women with CIN/SIL associated with nonvaccine HPV types.