Reacción a "A menstrual blood test detects the human papillomavirus (HPV) and could serve as an alternative in cervical cancer screening"

The work is very pioneering, although it is still in the research phase. Its clinical applications are not yet clear. These are the main points of interest:

• Menstrual blood, like any cervicovaginal fluid and urine, can carry cells from the genital/urinary tract, including viral markers (DNA; RNA). Therefore, detection has some value. The importance of the study lies in determining whether this value is equivalent to the performance of DNA tests in already validated samples (cytology, urine, or self-sampling) or whether it identifies some cases that are missed by conventional sampling.
• It must be demonstrated that blood does not interfere with the measurement of viral markers, a problem that was significant with early PCR tests.
• The cultural aspects in the study populations should be considered. Studies on the acceptability of the procedure compared to medical/self-collection should be anticipated.

My initial impression is that this is an area where we already have good tests and that collecting menstrual blood may add more confusion than benefit.