Light-Based Cervical Cancer Test Promising

U.S. firm SpectRx said Wednesday its non-invasive test for cervical cancer — which uses light to detect disease — works better than the Pap test alone.

The company said the new technology when used with the Pap test was better at differentiating diseased tissue from healthy tissue than a combination of the Pap and human papillomavirus tests.

In a recent study, the new diagnostic system, which uses light to scan the cervix for abnormal tissue, was tested on 102 women with abnormal Pap tests scheduled for colposcopy and biopsy at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

The study showed that the sensitivity of both test combinations was 95 percent, but the SpectRx/Pap test duo’s specificity — or the test’s ability to accurately detect benign or healthy tissue — was 65.5 percent, versus 27.4 percent for the Pap/HPV test combination.

Large studies, published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, show that the prevalence of HPV in the general population is higher than previously thought, said Mark Faupel, SpectRx’s president and chief operating officer, indicating greater need for a new test to determine quickly and accurately those women who actually have disease versus those who do not.