Cervical cancer and other human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancers are the worst possible outcome of HPV infection. Thus far more than 200 distinct commercial HPV tests and at least 130 test variants are available on the market as a diagnostic tools. In a representative sample of Slovenian women aged 20-64 years we aimed to compare three commercially available HPV tests: Hybrid capture 2 (hc2), Abbott RealTime High Risk HPV test (Abbott-RT) and 14 High-risk HPV with 16/18 Genotyping Real-Time PCR test (HBRT-H14) according to the international consensus guidelines for primary cervical cancer screening. Out of 1,600 women, a total of 127 were diagnosed with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (CIN2+), of which hc2 correctly identified 120/127, Abbott-RT 123/127 and HBRT-H14 122/127 women, which corresponds to clinical sensitivity of 94.5 %, 96.9 % and 96.1 %. hc2, Abbott-RT and HBRT-H14 were negative for hrHPV in 1,093/1,211, 1,116/1,216 and 1,061/1,211 women with two consecutive negative cytology results, respectively, which corresponds to clinical specificity for >CIN2 of 90.3 %, 91.8 % and 98.9 %, respectively. The noninferiority test revealed that the clinical sensitivity and specificity of the Abbott-RT and HBRT-H14 were non-inferior regardless of the clinical outcome (CIN2+/CIN3+) or age restriction (all p<0.05). In addition, high analytical concordance was observed between the Abbott-RT and HBRT-H14, with an overall agreement of 96.1 % and kappa value of 0.85. Our results suggest that Abbott and hc2 can be considered safe for use in clinical practice, while additional studies are needed to confirm HBRT-H14 as clinically validated.
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