Alinity m HR HPV Assay Fulfills Criteria for Human Papillomavirus Test Requirements in Cervical Cancer Screening Settings

The Alinity m HR HPV assay (Alinity) is a novel human papillomavirus (HPV) assay that individually identifies genotypes HPV16, HPV18, and HPV45 while reporting on 11 other high-risk HPV (hrHPV) genotypes in two aggregates: HPV31/33/52/58 and HPV35/39/51/56/59/66/68. The clinical performance of Alinity for screening for cervical cancer was evaluated in population-based settings. For women aged >30 years, the clinical sensitivity (n = 68) and specificity (n = 3,077) for the detection of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2+ (CIN2+) of Alinity were 100.0% and 92.4%, respectively, and were not inferior to those of the Qiagen Digene Hybrid Capture 2 high-risk HPV DNA assay (hc2) (P = 0.0006 and P < 0.0001, respectively). The intralaboratory reproducibility and interlaboratory agreement of Alinity were 96.7% (kappa, 0.92) and 98.7% (kappa, 0.97), respectively. In the group >30 years of age, women who were baseline hrHPV negative had a lower risk for CIN2+ at 3 years using Alinity (0.04%) than those with a normal baseline cytology (0.65%) and had a risk comparable to that determined by the Abbott RealTime High Risk HPV assay (0.04%), hc2 (0.08%), or the Roche Cobas 4800 HPV assay (0.04%). High-risk HPV16/18 infection was associated with a significantly higher baseline and 3-year CIN2+ and CIN3+ risk than the absence of HPV16/18 or the presence of hrHPVs at the baseline (all P values were <0.05). The baseline CIN2+ risk was 8.8% for those with HPV31/33/52/58 infection and 2.5% for those with HPV35/39/51/56/59/66/68 infection, while the 3-year CIN2+ risk was 17.0% and 4.9%, respectively (relative risk, 3.4 [P = 0.03] and 3.5 [P = 0.003], respectively), suggesting that extended genotyping by Alinity may be valuable in improving patient risk stratification. Alinity fulfills international consensus guideline criteria for primary cervical cancer screening and can be considered clinically validated, demonstrating safety comparable to that of other clinically validated HPV tests.