In 2017 the cervical cancer screening program in The Netherlands will be revised. Cervical smears will primarily be tested for the presence of high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) instead of cytology, and vaginal self-sampling will be offered to non-responders. This includes a potential risk that part of the women who would otherwise opt for a cervical smear will wait for self-sampling. However, self-sampling for hrHPV in a responder population has never been studied yet. The aim of this study was to investigate the applicability and accuracy of self-sampling in detecting hrHPV in a screening responder population. A total of 2049 women, aged 30–60years, participating in the screening program in The Netherlands were included from April 2013 to May 2015. After they had their cervical smear taken, women self-collected a cervicovaginal sample with a brush-based device, the Evalyn Brush. Both the cervical smear and self-sample specimen were tested with the COBAS 4800 HPV platform. The hrHPV prevalence was 8.0% (95% CI 6.9–9.2) among the physician-taken samples, and 10.0% (95% CI 8.7–11.3) among the self-samples. There was 96.8% (95% CI 96.0–97.5) concordance of hrHPV prevalence between self-samples and physician-taken samples. Women in our study evaluated self-sampling as convenient (97.1%), user-friendly (98.5%), and 62.8% preferred self-sampling over a physician-taken sampling for the next screening round. In conclusion, self-sampling showed high concordance with physician-taken sampling for hrHPV detection in a responder screening population and highly acceptable to women. Implementation of HPV-self-sampling for the responder population as a primary screening tool may be considered.
