Compass - Randomised Controlled Trial of Primary HPV Testing for Cervical Screening in Australia

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Molecular testing for HPV: Molecular testing for HPV with a test allowing partial genotyping for separate identification of types 16/18 from cervical samples. The technology used in this trial will be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Australia. It will identify the major HPV oncogenic genotypes in a pool and separately identify HPV 16 and 18. It will also satisfy performance criteria for relative sensitivity and specificity compared to Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2 ) as articulated by Meijer et al, 2009, Guidelines for human papillomavirus DNA test requirements for primary cervical cancer screening in women 30 years and older.

Liquid Based Cytology: The liquid based cytology (LBC) used in this trial will be will be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Australia for LBC and appropriately validated and (TGA approved) to perform human papillomavirus testing from a cytology sample.

Study summary

Compass is a randomised controlled trial of primary HPV testing for cervical cancer screening in Australia. A pilot study involving 5,000 women was carried out in 2013-2014. The trial will involve recruiting 76,300 women from primary health clinics. Women aged 25-69, attending for cervical screening or for routine follow-up will be invited to participate in the 2-arm trial. A liquid-based cytology (LBC) sample will be taken from consenting women and sent to VCS Pathology. Women will be randomised in a 1:2 parallel group allocation to LBC and HPV arms using randomisation with the minimisation procedure, with stratification by birth cohort according to whether offered HPV vaccination in Australia's national publicly-funded HPV vaccination program (date of birth \>=July 1st 1980 and \<1st July 1980). In the LBC (active control) arm, women will undergo 2.5 yearly image read cytology screening with reflex HPV triage testing for low grade cytology. In the HPV (intervention) arm women will undergo 5 yearly HPV screening with partial genotyping enabling separate identification of HPV16 and HPV18 and referral of this group for diagnostic evaluation, and secondary randomisation of "intermediate risk" women testing positive for oncogenic HPV (but not HPV 16 or 18) to either image read LBC screening or dual-stained (DS) cytology testing with p16/Ki67. The laboratory reports issued to practitioners will specify the recommended management for women, according to study arm and test results.Participating women will be flagged and clinical outcomes will be tracked via the Compass Register. Data linkage between the Compass Register and HPV vaccination records held on the Australian Immunisation Register will be performed in order to integrate vaccination and screening histories for trial participants. Participants will be actively followed for an anticipated 5 years from the time of recruitment and the primary outcome is based on the total cumulative detection of CIN3+ after exit testing at 5 years. The anticipated study completion date of March 2027 takes into consideration the final migration of participants to the National Cancer Screening Register and allows for two years to follow-up any intermediate risk results occurring in the last of the recruited trial participants.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• Cumulative CIN3+ (Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia Grade 3 or invasive cervical cancer) (ITT) — Expected 5 year follow-up
  The primary outcome will be cumulative CIN3+ at 5 years following a 5 year HPV exit testing round in both arms, in women randomised to the HPV arm vs. women randomised to the LBC arm, adjusted for censoring after CIN2+ treatment. For the primary outcome, intention to treat analysis will be performed with closed loop testing for non-inferiority and superiority if non-inferiority is declared. Assuming a total average CIN3+ rate in the LBC arm (across unvaccinated and vaccinated women) of 0.94%, and an absolute non-inferiority margin of 0.22%, the trial will have 78% power with 97.5% confidence to detect non-inferiority for the HPV arm, allowing for a 15% non-compliance rate.

Trial sites (1)