HUMAN-PAPILLOMAVIRUS DISTRIBUTION IN CERVICAL TISSUES OF DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGY AS DETERMINED BY HYBRID CAPTURE ASSAY AND PCR

Distribution of various types of genital human Papillomavirus (HPV) in smears from histologically classified cervical lesions was determined by hybrid capture assay (HCA) and was compared with a polymerase chai n reaction (PCR) system using general primers (GP) in first and type s pecific primers (TS) in a second step. The overall agreement of high-r isk HPV by HCA and the more sensitive GP/TS PCR was 80.6% (204 of 253, kappa value 0.6). Human Papillomavirus frequency by GP/TS PCR was 14- 20% higher compared with HCA (p = 0.02-0.004) independent of morpholog y. Only one sample was positive by HCA and negative by GP/TS PCR. A si gnificantly higher frequency was found using HCA and GP/TS PCR in smea rs from histologically proven cervical intraepithelial lesions (CIN) I I/III compared with CIN I, tissues with minimal changes (metaplasia, c ervicitis, or lack of glycogenization), or normal morphology (61% and 81% vs 8-15% and 24-34%, p less than or equal to 0.001). Semi-quantita tive estimate of HPV DNA copies by CIP-PCR coincided with estimated vi rus load by quantitative HCA and was significantly higher in patients with CIN II/III compared with CIN I (p < 0.001). Thus, the GP-PCR may be used to monitor the amount of HPV DNA copies in clinical samples. A direct correlation between morphologic changes and HPV detection as w ell as virus load was found by HCA and the more sensitive GP/TS PCR.