HPV Dry Swab Tube Collection Kit

Pathlab are pleased to announce the release of the new Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Dry Tube Collection kit from late October 2025. This new kit will replace the existing HPV buffer (wet) tube kit and has a few differences.

  1. The pink capped tube label looks slightly different with two rows of small 2D barcodes and an additional pink strip at the bottom. Please ensure that one row of the 2D barcodes is still visible after labelling with patient details so the instrument can read the barcodes.
  2. There is no buffer within the pink capped tube, so spillage is no longer a problem. The laboratory instrument will add the buffer when the HPV test is run.
  3. The full instructions are no longer in each individual kit, instead we have a large 2D barcode that you can scan, and it will link to the Pathlab website. On the website are the updated HPV Dry Tube Collection instructions. You may choose to print these out and provide them to your patient, or they can look them up on a mobile device.
  4. The new dry tubes are stable after swab collection at 2 to 30oC for up to 30 days, but please send them to the laboratory as soon as possible after collection.

New HPV dry swab kit

A few things to note around the kit change over:

  • Please ensure you use up all existing HPV Wet Swab Collection kits before changing to the new kits.
  • Do NOT pour the buffer out of the existing HPV wet tubes as the instrument knows from the tube 2D barcode that buffer should be present and is not able to add buffer. If there is no buffer in the existing HPV wet buffer tube a recollect will be necessary.

Grossly blood stained HPV swabs

Over time we have observed that heavily blood stained swabs are not suitable for the HPV molecular test and almost always produce an “Invalid” result. We would therefore ask that if possible, you collect the swab when bleeding has settled. Light to moderately blood stained swabs are generally acceptable for HPV molecular testing.