Prevalence of human papillomavirus genotypes in cervical cancer and precursor lesions

There are no data obtained in biopsy material on the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) and HPV genotypes in Croatian women with cervical carcinoma and precursor lesions. Therefore, the prevalence of HPV and HPV genotypes was investigated in archival material of cervical carcinoma and precursor lesions kept at Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Rijeka. DNA was isolated from formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tissue, histologically classified as cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) III (n=43), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (n=54) and adenocarcinoma (ADC) (n=40). HPV testing was performed by polimerase chain reaction (PCR) using generic and genotype specific primers. The prevalence of HPV DNA was 93.02%,92.59%, and 92.5% in CIN III, SCC and ADC, respectively. In CIN III and SCC, HPV-16 was the most common high-risk genotype, identified in 65% and 52%, followed by HPV-18 in 22.5% and 28% of cases, respectively. HPV-18 showed a statistically significant prevalence in ADC (67.6%) as compared with SCC (chi(2) =9.924;p <= 0.01). Study results revealed a high prevalence of HPV-DNA in examined cervical lesions (> 90%). HPV-16 predominated in SCC and HPV-18 in ADC. Single infection was more frequently present than multiple infections in all three histological groups.