Screening rates for HPV increase at clinics with self-tests

HPV self-tests increase screening rates, with a new study finding 10 percent more coverage at clinics which offer it.

Self-testing for human papillomavirus was rolled out nationally in September 2023.

The study period for this newly-published research took place before that change - between February 2022 and September 2023 - but it compared screening rates at clinics which offered self-testing, to those which didn't.

It found screening coverage was 10.8 percent higher at practices offering self-testing, and higher for all groups, including Māori - a historically under-served group.

Published on Thursday in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, and Women's Health journal, it included 22,511 people enrolled in 14 GPs in Te Tai Tokerau Northland.

Half the practices offered HPV self-testing and half offered a vaginal speculum exam by a doctor or nurse, the standard screening method before self-testing was introduced.

Professor Bev Lawton, lead author of the study and director of the University's Te Tātai Hauora o Hine-National Centre for Women's Health Research Aotearoa, said the study proved self-testing was a game changer.

"We know from our previous research the HPV self-test is acceptable and accessible for under- and never-screened wāhine Māori," she said.

HPV causes 95 percent of cervical cancers. According to Health NZ, since HPV self-testing was introduced in 2023, 81 percent of those being screened have opted to self-test - in the two years to July 2025, screening coverage rose by 7.4 percent.

It was important to understand how changes to the kinds of test on offer would affect the overall coverage, or number of people being reached by the programme, Lawton said.

"If you're going to change it and offer a self-test, you don't want to lose your coverage," she said. "Because the more people that the programme screens, the more likely that you're going to save lives."

Speaking from Austria, where she and her colleagues were discussing the study findings at the international conference EUROGIN, an international congress on HPV infections and associated cancers, she said the study could have worldwide ramifications - millions of people around the world could be spared an invasive vaginal speculum exam.

"We believe all national cervical screening programmes should urgently consider a universal offer of HPV self-testing through primary care," she said.

"If you have an organised screening programme, as you do in high income countries... it really means that millions of women do not need to have a speculum."

The research was funded by the Health Research Council, the Ministry of Health, and Mahitahi Hauora.

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