Distribution of the most common types of HPV in Iranian women with and without cervical cancer

ABSTRACT

Cervical cancer is an important cause of death in women worldwide. About 99.7% of all cervical cancers have been related to human papillomavirus, especially types 16 and 18. Types 6 and 11 cause genital warts. We aimed to determine the prevalence of common HPV genotypes among women in the general population and women with cervical cancer. A total of 571 healthy women cytology specimens and 113 tissue samples of cervical cancer were investigated using HPV type-specific primers. HPV DNA was detected in 24% of healthy women: 3.3% were positive for high-risk HPV and 11.6% for low-risk HPV. HPV6 (9.3%) had the highest prevalence followed by HPV11 (2.3%), HPV16 (1.8%), HPV18 (1.2%), and 9.1% of samples were positive for unknown types. Among cervical cancer samples, HPV DNA was found in 78.8% including 43.4% HPV16, 8% HPV18, and 27.4% an unknown HPV type. HPV6 and HPV11 were not detected in any cervical cancer cases and 21.2% were negative for HPV. We found no association between HPV-16/18 and age in cervical cancer. The prevalence of HPV infection is relatively high in Iran without vaccination backgrounds. HPV DNA screening and vaccination programs can prevent cervical cancer and health problems caused by genital warts.

KEYWORDS:

• Cervical cancer
• genital warts
• HPV
• human papillomavirus
• std
• women health

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge with thanks the DeNA laboratory, Antimicrobial Resistance Research Centre of Mashhad University, Pathology Departments Imam Hossein and Qaem hospitals. We are grateful to the patients and control subjects for providing clinical samples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Grant No Med-54400 from Tarbiat Modares University, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.