The three main types of cervical swabs currently in use are the inverted-V cervical swab, the nylon fiber cell brush, and the flocked nylon sampling swab. The former functions between the scraper and the cervical swab, using its serrated structure in the front section for exfoliated cell collection. The nylon fiber cell brush has bendable fibers perpendicular to the handle, allowing easy access to the cervical canal. However, both of these cervical swabs have low collection efficiency and tend to cause cervical bleeding, which affects sample preparation and detection. The new flocked nylon swab uses a sampling swab made by spraying flocked nylon fleece method on the ABS rod, which can extract samples adsorbed close to the surface of the sampling head and can be released intact and quickly detached. It has the characteristics of high collection efficiency and little damage to the cervical opening.
Regardless of which HPV test is used, cervical epithelial exfoliated cells are required as the test sample. The first clinical use of cotton swabs as cervical epithelial exfoliated cells sampler, but due to the low friction of cotton, the amount of collected cells is insufficient, and the water absorption of cotton often leads to cell dehydration and denaturation, affecting the observation of cells. In addition, cotton often adsorbs more mucus, resulting in cell accumulation during smear, which makes sample preparation and sample preservation more difficult. Although spatula scrapers avoid the disadvantages of cotton swabs, the amount of cells collected is still low, resulting in high false negatives and a high rate of missed diagnoses. In recent years, cervical swabs have been strongly recommended as cervical epithelial exfoliation cell samplers for the collection of cervical epithelial exfoliation cells at the cervical squamocolumnar junction.
Some studies have found that HPV testing can lead to emotional reactions such as fear and anxiety in women, the reasons for which are related to the sampling site and the testing method [2]. There are differences in viral load and low-risk HPV infection rates depending on the site of the genital tract. For HPV testing, a sampling tool with high collection efficiency, safety, stability, and simplicity of operation should be selected, and a sufficient amount of samples should be collected from the cervical area as much as possible, and a test with high sensitivity and specificity should be selected to improve the accuracy of HPV testing.
Flocked nylon sampling swabs, also referred to as cervical swabs, not only have higher collection efficiency, sensitivity and specificity, but also cause less damage to the cervix and have higher sampling safety.
Disposable cervical swabs produced by Shenzhen Huarui Kang Biomedical Devices Technology Co.
References
[1]Song G,Liu J,Wu Y. Research progress of HPV detection methods [J]. International Journal of Virology, 2017,24(4):280-284.
[2]Zhang Shaokai,Kang Leini,Liu Bin,et al. Evaluation of the screening effect of human papillomavirus DNA detection in different sampling specimens from the female genital tract[J]. Chinese Journal of Oncology,2014,36(5):389-393.
[3]Wang Xiaoqing,Du Fengxia,Zhang Yang. Clinical application of high-risk human papillomavirus testing in cervical precancer screening and its value analysis[J]. Journal of Aerospace,2018,29 (6):710-720.
[4]Zhou Jianhua,Analysis of the effectiveness of two types of disposable sterile sampling swabs for detecting cervical cancer[J]. Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine Science
