Prevalence and genotyping of HPV in cervical cancer among Australian women

Objective: To investigate the association between HPV DNA detection and histological examination of tumor biopsies from women with cervical cancer. Method: A total of 186 women with cervical cancer were screened for HPV infection using MY09/MY11 primer based PCR. The status of HPV infection was correlated with histological and demographic characteristics by Fisher's exact test or Chi square test. Result: The prevalence of HPV infection in this Australian population was 91.9% (171). Among these 53.8% (100) were HPV type 16, 17.2% (32) HPV type 18, and 21.0% (39) other HPV types. Three significant associations were identified: (1) HPV genotype Is and adenocarcinomas/adenosquamous carcinomas (P < 0.001); (2) HPV DNA negativity and postmenopausal status (P = 0.02); and (3) HPV DNA positivity and lymphocyte infiltration of tumor tissues (P = 0.03). Conclusion: HPV infection is present in the vast majority of cervical cancer patients. However, its presence or genotyping does not seem to have a major influence on the pathogenesis of cervical cancer, such as tumor grade, FIGO staging and metastasis (P > 0.1). (C) 1999 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.