Distribution of six oncogenic types of human papillomavirus and type 16 integration analysis in Chinese women with cervical precancerous lesions and carcinomas.

OBJECTIVES

The prevalent genotypes of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and the significance of HPV16 integration in cervical precancerous lesions and cancer of Chinese women were investigated.

METHODS

HPV genotyping and HPV16 integration status were studied on 100 normal cervical cytology, 90 low-grade (LSIL) and 99 high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL), as well as 96 cervical cancer biopsies using DNA sequencing and quantitative real-time PCR.

RESULTS

HPV were detected in 12.0% of normal cytology, 93.3% of LSIL, 90.9% of HSIL and 89.6% of cervical cancer samples. High-risk HPV16, 18, 58, 52, 33 and 31 were the 6 major HPV types observed, composing 45.6, 82.8 and 85.4% of HPV infections in LSIL, HSIL and cervical cancers, respectively, with a significant rising trend in increasing disease severity (p = 0.002). While HPV16 and HPV18 were most commonly found in cervical cancer, HPV58 was prevalently observed in cervical precancerous lesions, and its frequency decreased with increased disease severity. Among HPV16-positive patients, 40.0% of LSIL, 88.9% of HSIL and 86.4% of cancer cases had HPV16 integration. The frequency of the integrated form of HPV16 significantly increased with the severity of the disease.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrated that high-risk HPV infection and viral DNA integration were in progressive frequency from low-grade cervical precancerous lesions to cancer. HPV16 integration status had the potential to be a marker for cancer risk assessment of cervical precancerous lesions.