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Comparative Study
. 2025 Mar;111(3):116668.
doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2024.116668. Epub 2024 Dec 20.

Comparative efficacy of HPV 16/18 DNA and E6/E7 mRNA testing in detecting high-grade cervical lesions (CIN2+) in women with cervical biopsies

Sepideh Benvari  1 , Masoumeh Aslanimehr  2 , Fatemeh Samiee-Rad  3 , Taghi Naserpour-Farivar  4 , Hamid Sadeghi  5
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Comparative efficacy of HPV 16/18 DNA and E6/E7 mRNA testing in detecting high-grade cervical lesions (CIN2+) in women with cervical biopsies

Sepideh Benvari et al. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2025 Mar.

Abstract

The study evaluated the efficacy of HPV 16/18 E6/E7 mRNA detection in women with abnormal cervical histology. A total of 99 cervical biopsy samples were analyzed, including 49 benign, 16 with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 1 (CIN1), 9 with CIN2/3, and 25 with cervical cancers. Samples were tested for HPV 16/18 using both DNA and mRNA RT-PCR methods. The findings revealed a sensitivity of 85.3 % (29/34) for the HPV DNA test and 76.5 % (26/34) for the mRNA test in detecting CIN2+ lesions. Notably, the E6/E7 mRNA test demonstrated greater specificity for CIN2+ at 75.4 % (49/65), compared to 52.3 % (34/65) for the DNA test. The prevalence of positive results for both tests increased with the severity of squamous cell abnormalities. However, the HPV 16/18 E6/E7 mRNA test provided superior specificity, making it a more effective method for cervical cancer screening in this region, offering more precise results than DNA testing alone.

Keywords: Cervical cancer; E6/E7 mRNA; HPV 16/18; Real-Time PCR.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Hamid Sadeghi reports financial support was provided by Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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