Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 26;16(4):e0250426.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250426. eCollection 2021.

Self-collected and clinician-collected anal swabs show modest agreement for HPV genotyping

Affiliations

Self-collected and clinician-collected anal swabs show modest agreement for HPV genotyping

Racheal S Dube Mandishora et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Background & aim: Women with HIV/HPV coinfection and cervical lesions are at increased risk of developing HPV related anal cancer. Self-collection of anal swabs may facilitate HPV molecular testing in anal cancer screening, especially in high-risk groups, and yet it is not adequately studied. We evaluated level of agreement between self-collected anal swabs (SCAS) and clinician-collected anal swabs (CCAS) when used for HPV genotyping. We also described the anal HPV genotype distribution and HIV/HPV coinfection.

Methods: We performed a cross sectional study with participants from a visual-inspection-with-acetic-acid and cervicography (VIAC) clinic, in Harare, Zimbabwe. In a clinic setting, the women aged ≥18 years provided anal swabs in duplicate; first CCAS and then SCAS immediately after. HPV detection and genotyping were performed using next generation amplicon sequencing of a 450bp region of the HPV L1 gene. Level of agreement of HPV genotypes between CCAS and SCAS was calculated using the kappa statistic. McNemar tests were used to evaluate agreement in the proportion of genotypes detected by either method.

Results: Three-hundred women provided 600 samples for HPV genotyping. HPV genotypes were detected in 25% of SCAS and in 22% of CCAS. The most common genotypes with CCAS were HPV52, HPV62 and HPV70 and with SCAS were HPV62, HPV44, HPV52, HPV53 and HPV68. Total HPV genotypes detected in CCAS were more than those detected in SCAS, 32 versus 27. The agreement of HPV genotypes between the two methods was 0.55 in kappa value (k). The test of proportions using McNemar gave a Chi-square value of 0.75 (p = 0.39). Multiple HPV infections were detected in 28/75 and 29/67 women for CCAS and SCAS respectively.

Conclusions: SCAS and CCAS anal swabs showed moderate agreement, with no statistically significant difference in the proportion of genotypes detected by either methods. Although the differences between the two methods were not statistically significant, CCAS detected more HPV genotypes than SCAS and more HPV infections were detected in SCAS than in CCAS. Our data suggest that self-collected anal swabs can be used as an alternative to clinician-collected anal swabs for HPV genotyping.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
A) HPV genotypes detected in self-collected (SCAS) and clinician-collected (CCAS) anal swabs from women reporting for routine cervical cancer screening. B) Genotype concordance between SCAS and CCAS.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. zur Hausen H. Papillomaviruses in the causation of human cancers—a brief historical account. Virology. 2009;384:260–5. 10.1016/j.virol.2008.11.046 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wagner M, Bennetts L, Patel H, Welner S, de Sanjose S, Weiss TW. Global availability of data on HPV genotype-distribution in cervical, vulvar and vaginal disease and genotype-specific prevalence and incidence of HPV infection in females. Infectious Agents and Cancer. 2015;10:13. 10.1186/s13027-015-0008-y - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cervical cancer statistics. World Cancer Research Fund. 2018. https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/cancer-trends/cervical-cancer-statistics. Accessed 20 Aug 2020.
    1. Goodman MT, Shvetsov YB, McDuffie K, Wilkens LR, Zhu X, Thompson PJ, et al.. Sequential Acquisition of Human Papillomavirus Infection of the Anus and Cervix: The Hawaii HPV Cohort Study. J Infect Dis. 2010;201:1331–9. 10.1086/651620 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Park IU, Ogilvie JW Jr., Anderson KE, Li Z, Darrah L, Madoff R, et al.. Anal human papillomavirus infection and abnormal anal cytology in women with genital neoplasia. Gynecologic Oncology. 2009;114:399–403. 10.1016/j.ygyno.2009.05.008 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms