Histological types of carcinoma of the uterine cervix and the detectability of human papillomavirus DNA

Abstract

Using the Southern DNA hybridization technique, tissues from 17 cases of invasive carcinoma of the uterine cervix, including nine cases of squamous cell carcinoma, four cases of adenocarcinoma, one case of adenosquamous carcinoma, and three cases of undifferentiated carcinoma, were examined for the presence of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA. None of the studied cases had histologically confirmed association of condyloma acuminatum or cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in the vicinity. HPV DNA was detected in two of 17 cases under low stringency conditions. One lesion was undifferentiated carcinoma, and another was squamous cell carcinoma. Hybridization under high stringency conditions with a variety of HPV DNA probes indicated the presence of HPV-16 in these two lesions. The other HPV-positive lesion was adenocarcinoma, demonstrating weak hybridizations with HPV-2 and HPV-16 DNA probes only under high stringency conditions. Altogether, three of 17 cases (17.6%) contained HPV DNA. This observation contrasts to the rate of HPV DNA present in 15 of 18 cases (83.3%) of the tissues of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. Our data suggest that HPV was not consistently detected in invasive squamous cell carcinoma, despite the frequent association of HPV with its supposed precursor lesions of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.