A new cervical cancer test, called careHPV, by Qiagen was 90 percent accurate in detecting cervical cancer in women aged 30-54 in rural areas of eastern China.

Cervical cancer affects nearly 5,000,000 women around the world every year and more than 270,000 women die from cervical cancer each year. 493,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, more than 80 percent of them in developing countries.

The rapid test is designed to be used in rural and resource-poor settings of developing world.

Qiagen’s rapid HPV test was 90 percent accurate in detecting cervical cancer, compared to Pap testing (cytology), for which the sensitivity was 85 percent, You-lin Qiao and his colleagues reported in the study published in The Lancet Oncology. In the developed countries, Pap test is the standard screen for cervical disease, supplemented by HPV testing. But the techniques are expensive and require “a level of infrastructure unattainable in most of the developing world,” the researchers said.

The trial involved 2,388 women in Shanxi in eastern China. The careHPV test can detect 14 types of the human papillomavirus in around 2 and a half hours. The test does not require reliable electricity supplies or running water and can be used by non-technical support staff. The development of the test and the China study were partly funded by the Belinda Gates Foundation.

“The ability of the careHPV test to detect precancerous cells was found to be 90 percent; 84.2 percent of the women without precancerous disease were identified as negative by the test,” the researchers said in a statement.

The careHPV test could provide an effective primary screening method for cervical cancer prevention in rural and low-resource settings, the study’s authors concluded. Cervical cancer is caused by “high-risk” types of the human papillomavirus, which are sexually transmitted.