Last time I gave you the latest guidelines on cervical cancer screening released by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in January of this year, which mentioned HPV testing in several places. Over the past two days, I’ve had friends keep coming to me with various HPV reports and asking, “Dr. PP, why is my HPV report a specific number?” Which is the correct HPV test? The HPV test that results in a specific number (as shown in the first picture) is called a hybridization capture virus DNA test (HC), and the technology commonly used is now in its second generation, so it is often called the HC2 test. This technique detects the presence of DNA of high-risk HPV (i.e., cancer-causing HPV) in the cervical cells, and the data tells how much of the virus is present in the body (scientifically called “viral load”). HC2 is “quantitatively accurate” but “uncharacterizable” in that it cannot tell you which of the dozens of high-risk HPV subtypes are infected. The result is a specific HPV type test (as shown in the second picture), called HPV typing. This is a molecular biology or immunology method to detect which subtype of HPV you are infected with (you know, HPV is a family of more than 100 members, even the most “aggressive” high-risk types have more than a dozen members). The disadvantage of HPV typing is that it is “not quantitative”. It can be seen that HC2 is a quantitative test and HPV typing is a qualitative test, which are complementary to each other. From the perspective of cervical cancer screening, HC2 test is generally sufficient. If HC2 is negative (<1), it means there is no high-risk HPV infection at the time of testing. If hc2 is positive (>1), it means there may be high-risk HPV infection at the time of testing, and it is not too late to do HPV typing test if necessary. It should be noted that HPV testing is now carried out in many places, and cervical cancer screening relies heavily on the accuracy of the test results. The HPV testing methods (especially the typing methods) used in many places are not well scientifically certified and the results are not very reliable, which directly affects the accuracy of the screening results. Therefore, HPV testing should be performed in competent medical institutions by methods approved by the State Health Administration (SFDA).