Ladies, the days of dreading your yearly pap smear might be coming to an end —cue the confetti. If you’ve ever found yourself lying back on that cold, sterile table, feet in stirrups, trying to remember how to breathe while a doctor swabs your cervix like they’re searching for a missing contact lens, you’re definitely not alone. I hate pap smears. Pap smears are the necessary evil we’ve all had to endure to make sure we’re in the clear for cervical cancer. But guess what? A future where you can screen yourself — yes, from the comfort of your own home — is on the horizon.
Imagine not having to schedule a doctor’s appointment, sit in a waiting room for what feels like hours, and then awkwardly make small talk with your gynecologist while half-naked. Instead, you could just do the test yourself at home, without anyone but your cat to judge you. Cue the happy tears because healthcare companies are finally catching on to the fact that many of us would rather do anything else than face that dreaded speculum. Enter the new era of self-collection tests, which, according to the experts, could be a game-changer in women’s health as soon as this fall.
So, what’s making this possible? Labs have figured out that they can test samples from the vaginal walls instead of the cervix, which is kind of a big deal. It means you could soon be saying goodbye to stirrups forever. Researchers are working on getting approval for at-home self-collection tests, and one company, Teal Health, is leading the charge. They’re developing a device called the “Teal Wand,” if all goes well, you could be screening yourself at home by next year. Don’t you just love technology??
The FDA has already given the green light to some self-collection tests in healthcare settings, like the Onclarity HPV test from Becton, Dickinson, and Company and the Cobas HPV test from Roche Molecular Systems, which are both tools used to detect serious cervical diseases that can lead to cancer if not treated. And results so far show that the tests work pretty well. The Onclarity assay has a sensitivity of 85.7%, meaning it correctly identifies roughly 86 out of 100 people with the disease. Still, its specificity is 64.1%, so it might falsely identify 36 out of 100 healthy people as having the disease. (Sensitivity measures how good a test is at catching those who have the disease, while specificity shows how well the test avoids falsely diagnosing someone healthy.) On the other hand, the Cobas HPV test has a higher sensitivity of 93.5%, catching about 94 out of 100 cases, and a specificity of 69.3%, meaning it’s slightly better at correctly identifying those who don’t have the disease.
Of course, just because a test is approved doesn’t mean it’ll be available overnight. There are a few hurdles, like regulatory approvals, manufacturing, and distribution logistics, before these at-home tests can become a reality, according to CBS News. But with the way things are moving, you might just be able to add “cervical cancer screening” to your list of things to do between your morning coffee and scrolling through TikTok.
