Background: Identification of 14 high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) is immensely important in elucidating molecular epidemiology, patient monitoring and evidence-based treatment. There is paucity of such data from Chhattisgarh state of Central India. The present study has evaluated tagging oligonucleotide cleavage and extension-mediated Anyplex HR-HPV genotyping assay in identification of 14 HR-HPV genotypes attributable to premalignant and malignant cervical lesion in comparison to GP5+/6+ assay, cytology and colposcopy.
Materials and methods: A total of 185 clinically suspected cases of premalignant and malignant cervical lesion were investigated by HR-HPV genotyping, GP5+/6+, cytology and colposcopy.
Results: Genotyping assay showed clinical sensitivity and specificity of 86.5% (confidence interval [CI]: 80.7-91.0) and 100% (CI: 86.3-100) respectively and found noninferior to GP5+/6+ assay (P > 0.05). HR-HPV prevalence was 76.3%, 88.4%, 94.8%, 100% and 100% among cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) Grade I-III, squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma cases, respectively. The four most common genotypes detected in CIN I-III were HPV 16 (63.9%), HPV 39 (15.0%), HPV 18 (6.0%) and HPV 33 (5.3%). In cervical cancer (CC) cases, HPV 16 (44.4%), HPV 39 (11.1%), dual infection of HPV 16, 18 (11.1%) and triple infection of HPV 16, 18, 33 (11.1%) were the four most identified genotypic aetiologies. A novel coinfection of HR-HPV 35, 39 were found in two and one cases of CIN I and II. Finding of HPV 39 as the second most prevalent genotype was unusual and underscores the importance of genotyping screening.
Conclusion: Anyplex HR-HPV assay is arguably the useful assay for better patient management and can be useful for HR-HPV screening by its unique individual genotype identification of all HR-HPV. Finding of HPV 16, 39, 18, 33 and coinfection of 16,18 and 16, 18, 33 in CIN and CC would help vaccine manufacturer to design specific future HPV polyvalent vaccine preparation to curb down the CC-associated mortality.
Keywords: Cervical cancer; HR-HPV; genotyping.