Genotyping of high-risk human papilloma virus (HR-HPV) and its role in cervical cancer among suspected women at reproductive age

Abstract

One of the important causes of uterine and cervical malignancy and premalignancy lesions in human is the infection with papilloma virus, especially genotypes that belong to high-risk human papilloma virus (HR-HPV) group. The involvement of HPV DNA testing in an adjacent to cytological screening will be of positive impact in early discovery of cervical neoplasia among women at risk and will significantly minimize the mortality rate. The study subjects were screened for cervical neoplasia which may be caused by different genotypes of HR-HPV among Saudi females. Two hundred and thirty eight (n=238) cervical scrapings were collected from women who attended Maternity and Children Hospital (MCH) at Al-Madinah Al Munawarah between August 2015 to January 2017, and thereafter processed and examined cytologicaly using liquid based cytology (LBC). Simultaneously, one-step Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to examine the presence of HR-HPV different genotypes. Low incidence of precancerous epithelial lesions was observed among enrolled patients 13 (5.5%) with the following distribution: high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion in 5 cases (38.5%), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion in 4 (30.8%) and four cases (30.8%) as a typical squamous cells of undetermined significance. Nevertheless, HR-HPV was detected only in 6 (2.5%) cases and overall prevalence of HR-HPV in abnormal Pap smears was 15.4% (2/13). On the other hand, HPV were also seen in 1.9% (4/238) among smears that were registered free from any type of malignancy (NILM). The study concluded very low prevalence of HR-HPV in routine cervical screening samples among suspected Saudi women. Additionally, weak correlation between HPV and the incidence of cervical neoplasia was also observed. This may direct the clinicians and researchers to look for other suspected HPV genotypes in this regards. Key words: Cervical cancer, high-risk human papilloma virus (HR-HPV), low-risk human papilloma virus (HR-HPV), Saudi women, Al-Madinah Al Munawarah, Saudi Arabia.