HPV Testing Significantly Reduces Deaths from Cervical Cancer

        Results from an eight-year trial involving more than 130,000 women published today in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) demonstrate that in low-resource settings a single round of HPV testing significantly reduces the numbers of advanced cervical cancers and deaths, compared with Pap (cytology) testing or visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA). The trial used QIAGEN's (Nasdaq: QGEN; Frankfurt, Prime Standard: QIA) digene HPV Test, which detects high-risk types of human papillomavirus that cause cervical cancer.

         "The implications of the findings of this trial are immediate and global: international experts in cervical-cancer prevention should now adapt HPV testing for widespread implementation," wrote Drs. Mark Schiffman and Sholom Wacholder of the U.S. National Cancer Institute in an editorial that accompanied the study in the NEJM. "The remarkable promise of the Indian trial presents a worthy global challenge to implement smart, regionally tailored strategies that will efficiently save millions of lives in the years ahead."

         Following this milestone study, over the next five years QIAGEN will donate one million HPV tests, with a total estimated value of over US$30 million (based on U.S. list prices), as part of its broader global access program to provide the highest quality cervical cancer screening technologies to women in developing countries. Nearly 300,000 women die of cervical cancer every year, with 80% of deaths occurring in developing countries.