To enable knowledge-sharing around cervical cancer screening including the benefits of early screening with extended genotyping, BD (Becton, Dickinson, and Company) recently organised the ‘Shape the future of Cervical Cancer screening’ discussion forum for pathologists, obstetricians, and gynecologists in Varanasi and Delhi-NCR.

The Programme was organised along with the Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Delhi (AOGD), the Indian Society of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ISCCP), and The Association of Gynecologic Oncologists of India (AGOI), Forum of obstetricians and gynecologists of south Delhi (FOGSd).

The forum discussed the importance of HPV DNA testing with cytology triage in cervical cancer screening.  The forum also discussed the need for at-home collection and its role in addressing the challenge of reaching women who are unable to visit a gynecologist for routine cervical cancer screening.

Commenting on the initiative, Atul Grover, Managing Director, BD India/South Asia said, "Through our Shape the future of Cervical Cancer screening event, we are hopeful to have brought the spotlight on patient benefits of early screening with extended genotyping with the support and participation of more than 100 leading gynecologists and obstetricians, pathologists, and molecular biologists”

Present on the occasion, Dr Jeff Andrews, Vice President of Global Medical Affairs at BD shared, “It is well known that different high-risk HPV genotypes carry different risks of cervical pre-cancer, and without the specific knowledge of the HPV genotype, women may be under-treated or over-treated. Extended genotyping reporting benefits primary HPV screening and reporting of results from self-collection for HPV screening.”

The BD Onclarity HPV Assay detects and identifies 14 high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types in a single analysis and provides genotyping information from specimens collected for cervical cancer screening purposes. The BD Onclarity HPV Assay includes genotype reporting beyond HPV genotypes 16, 18, and 45 to include types 31, 51, 52, 33/58, 35/39/68, and 56/59/66.