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Review
. 2024 Mar 6:41:102678.
doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2024.102678. eCollection 2024 May.

DNA methylation as a triage tool for cervical cancer screening - A meeting report

F Ricardo Burdier  1 , Dur-E-Nayab Waheed  1 , Belinda Nedjai  2 , Renske D M Steenbergen  3   4 , Mario Poljak  5 , Marc Baay  6 , Alex Vorsters  1 , Severien Van Keer  1
Affiliations
Review

DNA methylation as a triage tool for cervical cancer screening - A meeting report

F Ricardo Burdier et al. Prev Med Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: DNA methylation is proposed as a novel biomarker able to monitor molecular events in human papillomavirus (HPV) infection pathophysiology, enabling the distinction between HPV-induced lesions with regression potential from those that may progress to HPV-related cancer.

Methods: This meeting report summarises the presentations and expert discussions during the HPV Prevention and Control Board-focused topic technical meeting on DNA methylation validation in clinician-collected and self-collected samples, novel DNA methylation markers discovery, implementation in cervical cancer screening programs, and their potential in women living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Results: Data presented in the meeting showed that HPV-positive, baseline methylation-negative women have a lower cumulative cervical cancer incidence than baseline cytology-negative women, making DNA methylation an attractive triage strategy. However, additional standardised data in different settings (low- versus high-income settings), samples (clinician-collected and self-collected), study designs (prospective, modelling, impact) and populations (immunocompetent women, women living with HIV) are needed.

Conclusion: Establishing international validation guidelines were identified as the way forward towards accurate validation and subsequent implementation in current screening programs.

Keywords: Cervical cancer screening; HPV-related disease; Human papillomavirus infection; Methylation; Molecular biomarker; Prognostic biomarker; Self-sampling; Triage.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: AV University of Antwerp obtained unrestricted educational grants from GSK, Merck, Roche and Hologic; an investigator-initiated grant from Merck and speaker fees from Merck. RDMS is a minority shareholder of Self-screen BV. Self-screen holds patents and products related to the work described. MP’s institution received research funding, free-of-charge reagents, and consumables to support HPV methylation research in the last 3 years from Qiagen, all paid to his employer. MB received medical writing fees from Merck, SPMSD and GSK. SVK is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) on Methylation of Novosanis since 2022. Alex Vorsters reports his institution has received financial support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Alex Vorsters reports a relationship between his institute Center for the Evaluation of Vaccination, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Merck, Roche Diagnostics, Becton Dickinson, and Hologic that includes: funding grants. DNW and FRB have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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