Efficient primary (vaccination) and secondary (screening) prevention strategies have the potential to eliminate cervical cancer worldwide. In this context, surveillance of HPV infections remains mandatory to assess the efficacy and the impact of screening and vaccination policies. Therefore there is a need to safely store cervical samples to conduct long-term studies in vaccinated and non-vaccinated subjects. Up-dated data on cervical specimen preservation on FTA® cards indicate that HPV DNA can be safely retrieved after 54 months of storage. A concordance of 97 % was achieved between HPV genotypes detected in initial cervical samples and on FTA® cards 4.5 years later. Even if a drop in HPV viral loads was observed in some cases at 4.5 years, using FTA® cards for safe and long-term storage of cervical samples represents an interesting option.

有效的初级（疫苗接种）和二级（筛查）预防策略有可能在全球范围内消除宫颈癌。在这种情况下，仍然必须对 HPV 感染进行监测，以评估筛查和疫苗接种政策的功效和影响。因此，需要安全地储存宫颈样本，以便在接种疫苗和未接种疫苗的受试者中进行长期研究。FTA® 卡上有关宫颈标本保存的最新数据表明，在保存 54 个月后，可以安全地提取 HPV DNA。4.5 年后，在初始宫颈样本和 FTA® 卡上检测到的 HPV 基因型之间实现了 97% 的一致性。即使在某些情况下在 4.5 年观察到 HPV 病毒载量下降，使用 FTA® 卡安全和长期储存宫颈样本也是一个有趣的选择。