Prevalence of human papillomavirus in the public health system of the central-northern region of Chile.

OBJECTIVE

Previously, we found a high prevalence of high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) in women attending the private health system. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the frequency of HR-HPV in a large cohort of women attending the public health system and to compare these findings.

METHODS

A total of 39,512 cervical samples from women aged 18 to 91 years who attended gynecological check-ups between 2020 and 2024 were analyzed using qPCR and the Papanicolaou technique.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of HR-HPV infection between 2020 and 2024 was 13.70% (95% CI: 13.37-14.05%), with annual values of 13.07%, 12.64%, 14.80%, 14.24%, and 14.15% in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively. In women under 25 years of age, the prevalence of HR-HPV was 34.03% during the evaluated period, compared to 16.35% in women aged 25 to 44 years, 10.47% in those aged 45 to 64 years, and 11.52% in women over 64 years of age. Pap smears showed 89.71% NILM results in HPV-negative women, compared to 74.59% in HPV-positive women. The rates of LSIL and HSIL were 0.14% and 0.07% in HPV-negative women, respectively; however, these values increased to 4.73% and 4.43% in HPV-positive women, respectively. Probable carcinoma was found in only 0.006% of HPV-negative women, but in 0.46% of HPV-positive women.

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of HR-HPV infection in women attending the public health system in the central-northern region appears to be similar to that previously reported in Chile, but lower than that reported in the same region for women attending the private health system.