Cervical cancer is one of the major threats to women's health worldwide, and precise sampling—being the first critical step in cervical cancer screening—directly determines the reliability of subsequent test results. In recent years, single-use cervical sampling swabs based on flocking technology have undergone continuous iterative upgrades. With advantages such as high cell recovery rates and standardized operation procedures, these swabs have effectively addressed the shortcomings of traditional sampling tools, providing crucial technical support for China’s remarkable achievement of raising cervical cancer prevention and screening coverage to 86.3%. They have become essential consumables for grassroots screening and large-scale population-based prevention efforts.

In clinical practice, insufficient cell collection is the primary cause of false-negative results or test failures in cervical cancer screening. Traditional cotton or sponge swabs, with their loosely structured fiber matrices, tend to trap cells in the interstitial spaces, resulting in sample transfer losses exceeding 40% and severely compromising test accuracy. Addressing this critical issue, a domestic medical company has achieved a technological breakthrough by introducing flocked cervical swabs. These swabs employ a vertical flocking process to create a high-density nylon fiber matrix with a fiber density as high as 4×10⁶/cm³. Thanks to capillary action, they efficiently adsorb cells and enable rapid cell release. Laboratory data show that these flocked swabs achieve a cell-release rate of ≥95% and an overall recovery rate of 95.1%, significantly surpassing the 68.1% recovery rate of traditional sponge swabs and the 61.1% recovery rate of cotton swabs. As a result, these flocked swabs provide ample, high-quality cellular samples for downstream tests such as HPV and TCT screening.

In addition to the improved sampling accuracy, the user-friendly design and standardized features of single-use cervical swabs have greatly enhanced the clinical experience. Reporters learned from several Grade-III hospitals that mainstream flocked swabs are made of medical-grade ABS material, with a moderately flexible swab shaft that can conform to the natural curvature of the cervix, thereby reducing patient discomfort. The swabs feature a pre-set break point at 8–12 N, ensuring that they can be easily broken off after sampling and placed into preservation solution, thus avoiding accidental breakage during operation. Moreover, each swab is sterilized by gamma irradiation, achieving a sterility assurance level that meets the highest standard for medical devices—SAL 10⁻⁶. The individual paper-plastic packaging not only facilitates quick retrieval in outpatient settings but also effectively prevents cross-contamination. According to statistical data from the gynecology department of a provincial Grade-III hospital, after introducing flocked swabs, the average cell yield of qualified samples increased by 30%, while the retest rate due to insufficient cell numbers dropped from 8.7% to 2.1%. Furthermore, the variation in sampling quality among healthcare workers of different years has been significantly reduced.

In cervical cancer prevention and control efforts in low-resource areas of China, the technological advantages of single-use cervical sampling swabs become even more pronounced. At the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Professor Zhu Lan, Director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, shared the “China Solution,” which includes an innovative sampling technique tailored for grassroots screening: a single-use self-sampling swab made from aerospace-grade biomimetic materials, combined with a room-temperature preservation solution. This combination enables samples to be transported at room temperature for up to seven days without compromising testing accuracy. As a result, screening costs in remote regions such as Naqu in Tibet and Nujiang in Yunnan have been reduced by 76%, and the screening cycle has been shortened from three months to just 72 hours. Under the “mobile screening vehicle + AI cloud-based diagnosis” model implemented in these regions, standardized single-use sampling swabs ensure consistent quality of grassroots sample collection, providing a reliable data foundation for subsequent AI-assisted diagnostics and helping the seven pilot counties achieve the World Health Organization’s 2030 cervical cancer prevention and control targets ahead of schedule.

The refinement of industry standards has further promoted the standardized application of single-use cervical sampling swabs. As the drafting unit of standards such as “Single-Use Sampling Swabs,” relevant medical enterprises have established a comprehensive quality control system covering 23 critical control points—including material modification, GMP-compliant clean production, and visual inspection. Their products have not only obtained Class II medical device registration certificates in China but have also passed CE certification and FDA approval. Featuring a versatile “one-swab-multiple-applications” design, these swabs are compatible with mainstream molecular detection technologies such as PCR and NGS, meeting diverse testing needs including HPV genotyping and TCT cytology examinations. In a large-scale screening project at the grassroots level in a certain region, after adopting standardized single-use sampling swab kits, the detection rate among high-risk populations significantly increased, and the average time required for each sampling procedure was reduced by 30 seconds, greatly enhancing the efficiency of outpatient screening.

Medical experts point out that the technological innovation and widespread adoption of single-use cervical sampling swabs represent a crucial safeguard for China’s shift in cervical cancer screening—from “universal coverage” to “high quality.” As technologies such as liquid biopsy continue to advance, precision sampling consumables will play an even more pivotal role as the cornerstone of large-scale population-based prevention and control efforts. Looking ahead, with ongoing improvements in materials technology and ergonomic design, single-use cervical sampling swabs are expected to further enhance user comfort and testing compatibility, thereby providing stronger technical support for ultimately achieving the global goal of eliminating cervical cancer.