Association between human papillomavirus infection and cytological abnormalities during early follow-up of invasive cervical cancer.

Considering the limitations of cytology for detection of residual cervical cancer after radiotherapy, the aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and viral load of high-risk HPV in cervical and vaginal samples during the early follow-up of patients treated for invasive cervical cancer and correlate the results with cytological examination. Conventional cytology and hybrid capture test were performed on cervical and vaginal samples of 52 women with invasive cervical carcinoma 3 months after therapy. High-risk HPV was detected in 46.1% of the samples and the median and the range of the ratio relative light unit (RLU)/cutoff (CO) (estimated viral load) in positive samples was 1.71 (1-2120.03). No significant difference was observed in viral frequency and in median of the ratio RLU/CO between samples of patients at different stages (I-III) and between cervical samples, from patients treated by exclusive radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy, and vaginal samples, from patients who underwent to hysterectomy and radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy. Cytological abnormalities were more frequent significantly in samples with HPV than in samples without HPV. The viral load was also higher significantly in samples with cytological abnormalities when compared with the samples without cytological abnormalities. In conclusion, HPV detection methods may be useful during the early follow-up as a complement to conventional cytology for the diagnosis of residual cervical cancer after radiotherapy.