Viral load of human papillomavirus in women with normal and abnormal cervical cytology in Kuwait

Introduction: Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are the most commonly known sexually transmitted agents. Almost all cases of cervical cancer are caused by persistent infection. This study was conducted to ascertain whether there is a difference in HPV load in cervical samples with normal and abnormal ce...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rana Al-Awadhi, Wassim Chehadeh, Waleed Al-Jassar, Jehad Al-Harmi, Eyad Al-Saleh, Kusum Kapila
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries 2013-02-01
Series:Journal of Infection in Developing Countries
Subjects:
Online Access:https://jidc.org/index.php/journal/article/view/2748
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Introduction: Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are the most commonly known sexually transmitted agents. Almost all cases of cervical cancer are caused by persistent infection. This study was conducted to ascertain whether there is a difference in HPV load in cervical samples with normal and abnormal cervical cytology reports in Kuwait. Methodology: HPV-positive abnormal ThinPrep samples (n = 206) and normal ThinPrep samples (n = 120) were taken from women attending gynecology clinics. Real-time PCR was used to measure the viral load for all HPV genotypes. Results: The median normalized viral load in samples with normal and abnormal cytology reports was 0.86 × 10-7 and 4.66 × 10-7, respectively (p = 0.001). Median normalized viral load of high-risk (HR), intermediate-risk (IR) and low-risk (LR) HPV was 4.04 × 10-7, 0.71 × 10-7 and 2.38 × 10-7, respectively, (p = 0.002). Conclusions: The findings suggest that, in the absence of a proper screening programme in Kuwait, quantification of HPV viral load could be considered as a surrogate virology test to identify women with abnormal cytology. Further population-based prospective studies are needed to include more women with high-grade and invasive carcinoma reports.
ISSN:1972-2680