Table 4.

Overview of different methods used by the selected papers to collected CVS.

CVS collection method	Studies	Remarks
1/Wick techniques
Tampon (self-collected)	Scherpenisse et al. (2013) [57]
Ultracell sponges	Kemp et al. (2008a) [27]
Merocel sponges	Kemp et al. (2008a,b) [27,53]; Einstein et al.(2009/2011/2014) [[47], [48], [49]]; Schwarz et al. (2009/2010/2015/2017) [[58], [59], [60], [61]]; Petäjä et al.(2011) [56]
Weck-cel sponges	Nardelli-Haefliger et al. (2003/2005) [54,55]
	Huo et al. (2012) [52]
Sno-strips	Snowhite et al. (2002) [39]; Onda et al. (2003) [34]
Not reported	Hagensee et al. (2000) [26]
2/Aspiration, cervical-vaginal lavage techniques		Volume
Collected by PBS	Rocha-Zavaleta et al. (2003/2004) [36,37]; Lopez et al. (2008) [28]; Monroy et al. (2010) [32]	1 mL
	Gonçalves et al. (2016) [51]	2 mL
	Snowhite et al. (2002) [39]; Nguyen et al. (2005) [33]	5 mL
	Tjiong et al. (2000/2001) [41,42]	20 mL
Collected by physiologic serum	Dreyfus et al. (1995) [23]	Not reported
Collected by saline	Marais et al. (2000/2009) [29,30]	5 mL
	Snyder et al. (1991) [40]	Not reported
Not reported	Fife et al. (2004) [50]; Mbulawa et al. (2008) [31]; Ekalaksananan et al. (2014) [24]; Ferreira Costa (2018) [62]	Not reported
3/Cytobrush/swab		Device
Swabbing the endocervix	Bierl et al. (2005) [19]; Passmore et al. (2007) [35]	Digene sampler, Maryland, USA
Swabbing ectocervix	Dillner et al. (1993) [22]; Wang et al. (1996) [44]	Medscand, Mahnö, Sweden
Swabbing endo and ectocervix	Elfgren et al. (1996) [25]
	Veress et al. (1994) [43]	Not reported
Swabbing endo/ectocervices posterior fornix of the vagina	Sasagawa et al. (2003) [38]
Vaginal swab (self-collected)	Draper et al. (2013) [38]	Netcell Slimpack™ Polyvinyl acetate media; Network Medical Products, UK
Not reported	Dillner et al. (1989) [21]; Bontkes et al. (1999) [20]	Not reported