Prevalence of human papillomavirus type 58 in women with or without cervical lesions in northeast Brazil

Abstract

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been recognized as a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of cervical cancer.

Aim: In this study, we investigated the prevalence of HPV and the genotype distribution in women from Natal, North-East Brazil, with normal cytology and with cervical lesions of different degrees.

Subjects and methods: Included in this study were 110 women with a normal cytology and 315 with a previous history of cervical cytological abnormalities. The patients were enrolled between January 2005 and December 2008. The cytopathological analyzes were performed by the Pap smear exam, and the pre-malignant and maligant lesions were confirmed based on the histopathological analysis. The presence of HPV was detected by polymerase chain reaction with genotyping by dot blot hybridization. All the data were included in a database, using the software SPSS, Version 10.0 (Chicago Il, USA).

Results: Overall HPV prevalence was 65.2% (277/425), with 85.9% (238/277) single and 14.1% (39/277) multiple infection. The most prevalent HPV types were HPVs 16, 58, 18, 31, and 45. HPV 16 was the most prevalent genotype, independently of the health status of patients. HPV 58 was the second most prevalent type in women with normal cytology and in those who had mild or moderate dysplasia. HPV 58 presented equal prevalence to HPV 18 in patients with severe dysplasia. However, it was less prevalent than HPV 18 in women with cervical cancer.

Conclusions: The results show a high prevalence of HPV 58, especially in women with mild and moderate dysplasia, revealing the high-frequency circulation of this genotype of HPV in the local population. This finding suggests the need to include this genotype in future HPV vaccines targeting women in this region.

Keywords: Human papillomavirus; Risk factors; Uterine cervical lesions.