Abstract C127: Prevalence of human papillomavirus infection in a sample of 21- to 29-year-old women living in Puerto Rico

Abstract

Abstract Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide. High-risk HPV infections are observed in women with genotypes 16 and 18, among others, and are the main risk factor for cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the seventh most diagnosed cancer among women in Puerto Rico, and accounts for 2.5% of mortality rates. The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of high-risk HPV, in a large cohort of women ages 21 to 29 living in Puerto Rico during 2014-2016. Method: A retrospective longitudinal analysis was performed to a sample of 5,749 HPV results that were recorded in a clinical database of Puerto Rican women ages 21 to 29 from 2014-2016. Furthermore, the prevalence of the high-risk HPV genotypes, 16 and / or 18, was ascertained along with the proportion of women who resolved the initial positive infection during the study period. Results and Conclusion: We found that among those with a positive HPV result, about one-third (35.17%) had a high-risk HPV infection. Women between the ages 21 to 23 showed the highest prevalence (40.6%) of high-risk HPV compared to the other age groups. Among all high-risk HPV, genotype 16 was the most prevalent. About a subsample of 458 women had at least two positive results of HPV infection, 217 of those women had an initial positive result for HPV and only 108 (49.7%) showed a resolution of the infection. Our study confirms there is a high prevalence of high-risk HPV in young women compared to other age groups. Discussion: Women with persistent HPV infection have a major risk factor for developing cervical cancer. There is an urgent need to develop a good prevention strategy to reduce the high-risk HPV infections, especially in the younger population, as was shown in this study. Future research is needed to assess the impact of preventive methods, such as the HPV vaccine, and the outcome in the prevalence and incidence of cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers. Promoting education and awareness could further reduce the HPV-associated cancer burden, prevalence and incidence in this minority population. Citation Format: Yaritza Leon, Lynnette A Ruiz, William A Calo, Susan T Vadaparampil, Rosa Velez-Cintron. Prevalence of human papillomavirus infection in a sample of 21- to 29-year-old women living in Puerto Rico [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2019 Sep 20-23; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl_2):Abstract nr C127.