Pattern of human papillomavirus infection in uterine cervical adenocarcinoma in a university hospital setting in Malaysia

Abstract

Adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix is fast gaining prominence with the worldwide decreasing trend of squamous and adenosqua-mous carcinoma. Most human papillomavirus (HPV) type-specific prevalence studies however do not specifically address this increasingly important histological type. Hence a study was conducted at the Department of Pathology, University of Malaya Medical Centre, to interrogate the HPV type-specific prevalence in 51 consecutive cases of histologically-confirmed, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded cervical adenocarcinoma. Prior to HPV testing all cases were subjected to amplification of a 268-bp human beta-globin fragment to ensure extracted DNA integrity. Specific HPV types were determined using the commercially available Hybribio 21 HPV GenoArray test kit which incorporates amplification and flow-through hybridisation with HPV type-specific probes. Furthermore, all HPV-negative cases were amplified using consensus L1 ORF (MY09/11) primers. Patients' ages ranged between 14-75 years (mean 48 years). Ethnically 21 cases were Malay, 20 Chinese, 6 Indian and 4 of other racial origins. Twenty-seven (52.9%) were HPV positive. Twenty-four (88.9%) had single infections (17 HPV18, 4 HPV16, 1 HPV45, 1 HPV68 and 1 positive for LIORF) and 3 double infections (2 HPV16+18 and 1 HPV18+59). As in most studies, HPV18 (74.1%) was the most frequently encountered followed by HPV16 (22.2%) and HPV45 and HPV 68 at 3.7% each.