Advances in Nanotechnology and Microfluidics for Human Papillomavirus Diagnostics

Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been shown in many studies as a prerequisite for the development of cervical cancer, which is the second most common and predominant form of malignancy among women worldwide, with 270 000 deaths (80% of whom live in developing countries) and 500 000 new cases per year. Early diagnosis of cervical cancer allows patients to be fully treated. Therefore, there is high clinical utility of HPV diagnostics even with binary positive/negative indication of the presence of HPV in patient samples. Although the Pap smear is widely used for cervical cancer screening, this method still suffers from low sensitivity and specificity. Thus, simple, rapid and inexpensive diagnostic methods are needed to detect the etiology of cervical cancer, i.e., HPV, especially high-risk oncogenic subtypes 16 and 18. Here, we review the existing assays and platforms employed for HPV diagnosis, and highlight recent advances in nanotechnology and microfluidics that potentially enable new approaches for HPV diagnosis.