Improving Cervical Cancer Screening Rates for Transgender Men

Transgender men are at risk for cervical cancer. Inadequate screening for cervical cancer is linked to the barriers transgender individuals face in accessing culturally sensitive health care. Alternative options for cervical cancer screening, including self-sampling for human papilloma virus (HPV) testing, could improve the screening rate among transgender men.

More than half of the participants expressed a preference for HPV self-sampling in the study published in LGBT Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the LGBT Health website until October 6, 2017.

‘Transgender Men who have never been screened for cervical cancer are at the highest risk for progression of chronic hr-HPV infection to malignancy, mortality.’

Approximately half of the study participants did not have a Pap smear to screen for cervical cancer within the previous 3 years, according to coauthors Julia Seay, PhD, Roy Weiss, MD, Christopher Salgado, MD, Lydia Fein, MD, and Erin Kobetz, PhD, MPH, University of Miami, FL, and Atticus Ranck, Sunshine Social Services, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, FL.

In the article entitled "Understanding Transgender Men's Experiences with and Preferences for Cervical Cancer Screening: A Rapid Assessment Survey," the authors emphasize the need for innovative primary screening alternatives such as HPV self-sampling and the importance of testing the effectiveness of this approach in transgender men in future studies.

"This important study identifies factors, including HPV self-sampling, that may improve cervical cancer screening among transgender men with a cervix and translate into reduced cervical cancer morbidity and mortality in this population," says LGBT Health Editor-in-Chief William Byne, MD, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.

Source: Eurekalert