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Clinical Trial
. 2013 Dec 30;8(12):e86266.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086266. eCollection 2013.

Association of Trichomonas vaginalis and cytological abnormalities of the cervix in low risk women

Gilbert G G Donders  1 , Christophe E Depuydt  2 , John-Paul Bogers  2 , Annie J Vereecken  2
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Association of Trichomonas vaginalis and cytological abnormalities of the cervix in low risk women

Gilbert G G Donders et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objective: Is Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) an inducing factor for the development of (pre-)cancerous lesions of the cervix?

Design: Cross sectional study.

Setting: Screening healthy Belgian women with low infection risk.

Sample: 63,251 consecutive liquid based cervical samples.

Methods: Real time quantitative PCR for presence of TV, 18 HPV types and Pap smear analysis of cytologic abnormalities.

Main outcome measures: Association of TV and HPV with cervix dysplasia.

Results: The overall prevalence of TV DNA was 0.37%, of low risk HPV 2%, of high risk HPV 13.2%, and 8.8 % had cytological abnormalities. Both LR-HPV and HR-HPV were significantly associated with all cytological abnormalities. Presence of TV was associated with LR- and HR-HPV, ASC-US and HSIL, but not with other abnormalities. All women with TV and HSIL also had HR-HPV, while the latter was present in only 59% of women with TV and ASC-US. Amongst HPV negative women, TV was found in 1.3% of women with ASC-US, but only in 0.03% of women with normal cytology (OR 4.2, CL95% 2.1-8.6). In HR-HPV positive women, presence of TV increased the likelihood of cytological abnormalities somewhat (P=0.05), mainly due to an increase in ASC-US and LSIL, but not HSIL.

Conclusions: We conclude that TV infection is associated with both LR and HR-HPV infection of the cervix, as well as with ASC-US and HSIL. TV is a concomitant STI, but is not thought to be a co-factor in the causation of HSIL and cervical cancer. However, TV may cause false positive diagnoses of ASC-US.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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