NEW YORK TIMES: …A federal advisory committee recommended unanimously on Wednesday that a DNA test developed by Roche be approved for use as a primary screening tool.
“Has our Pap, as we know it, outlived its time?” Dr. Dorothy Rosenthal, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, testified to the committee, which advises the Food and Drug Administration. She said deaths from cervical cancer in the United States had stopped declining and that there would be “a tremendous gain” by moving to the new test.
The Roche test detects the DNA of human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes almost all cases of cervical cancer. Pap testing involves examining a cervical sample under the microscope looking for abnormalities… (more)
