Development and Implementation of a Cervical Patch Sampling Approach for Cervical Screening and the Study of HPV Transmission
type: CreativeWork
description: HPV is the causative agent behind 99.7% of Cervical cancers and is implicated in the pathogenesis of many other tumours such as Anal and Oropharyngeal tumours. Recently some studies have called into question the suitability of the techniques used in order to sterilise frequently used, reusable medical devices such as endoscopes or trans-vaginal ultrasound scan probes. These findings have real public health implications as in the case of trans-vaginal probes, the failure to disinfect these probes means that HPV could be transmitted to the cervix and the most vulnerable site for a transforming HPV infection i.e. the cervical transformation zone. To assess if these findings were correct, we utilised a novel Patch sampling approach to lift and sample the cervical surface epithelial cells that would be in contact with any vaginal medical device. Utilising this approach, we were able to quantify the infective viral titre that any device may come into contact with. By quantifying this infective titre, we were then able to utilise physiologically relevant viral particles generated using a RAFT culture system and an in vivo mouse model (MmuPV1) to first assess infectivity in vitro and then in vivo. Upon successful validation of these systems, we found that even at the highest clinical titres observed, the majority of high-level disinfectants had excellent activity against HPV. Interestingly we also found that in the case of the in vitro system the neutralised control utilised by other groups led to an experimental artefact being witnessed which led to this erroneous conclusion that HPV is resistant to certain disinfectants. The in vivo model also allowed to assess the role of fomites in the transmission of PV. Here we found that fomite transmission is indeed a real possibility and PV demonstrated a significant resistance to desiccation in our model systems. Past work has suggested a possible role for the viral protein E4 in successful transmission and survival of PV. To gain…
abstract: HPV is the causative agent behind 99.7% of Cervical cancers and is implicated in the pathogenesis of many other tumours such as Anal and Oropharyngeal tumours. Recently some studies have called into question the suitability of the techniques used in order to sterilise frequently used, reusable medical devices such as endoscopes or trans-vaginal ultrasound scan probes. These findings have real public health implications as in the case of trans-vaginal probes, the failure to disinfect these probes means that HPV could be transmitted to the cervix and the most vulnerable site for a transforming HPV infection i.e. the cervical transformation zone. To assess if these findings were correct, we utilised a novel Patch sampling approach to lift and sample the cervical surface epithelial cells that would be in contact with any vaginal medical device. Utilising this approach, we were able to quantify the infective viral titre that any device may come into contact with. By quantifying this infective titre, we were then able to utilise physiologically relevant viral particles generated using a RAFT culture system and an in vivo mouse model (MmuPV1) to first assess infectivity in vitro and then in vivo. Upon successful validation of these systems, we found that even at the highest clinical titres observed, the majority of high-level disinfectants had excellent activity against HPV. Interestingly we also found that in the case of the in vitro system the neutralised control utilised by other groups led to an experimental artefact being witnessed which led to this erroneous conclusion that HPV is resistant to certain disinfectants. The in vivo model also allowed to assess the role of fomites in the transmission of PV. Here we found that fomite transmission is indeed a real possibility and PV demonstrated a significant resistance to desiccation in our model systems. Past work has suggested a possible role for the viral protein E4 in successful transmission and survival of PV. To gain…
author: Shiraz, Mohamed
language: eng
keywords: hpv, screening, disinfection, triage, cervical cancer, machine learning
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/3fdd0fe5-3c63-411a-8dbe-42130bdcff70/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2021-04-03
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:21Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.72215