RISK-FACTORS FOR HPV DETECTION IN ARCHIVAL PAP-SMEARS - A POPULATION-BASED STUDY FROM GREENLAND AND DENMARK

The most important risk factor for cervical cancer is genital infectio n with certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). The presence of HP V was studied in archival smears from a random sample of women Living in Greenland (GW) and Denmark (DW) having, respectively, a high risk a nd an intermediate risk for cervical cancer. Risk factors were also ex amined of the original 126 Danish and 129 Greenlandic archived smears collected during October and November 1988. 125 were located from each country including all abnormal smears. HPV DNA was isolated fi om the smears and detected by means of a consensus polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detecting a broad spectrum of genital HPV types. HPV was detect ed in all the abnormal smears and in 22 and 33% respectively of the cy tological normal smears from DW and GW. Risk of HPV was significantly higher in smears fi om women who started sexual life relatively recent ly (respectively, less than or equal to 4 and less than or equal to 6 years ago in DW and GW) compared with greater than or equal to 10 year s ago (adjusted prevalence-OR: 9.3; 95% CI:2.2-39.2 in DW and 5.9; 95 % CI: 1.4-25.3 in GW). Among other important risk factors were age in both areas, lifetime number of sex partners and current smoking in DW and ever had gonorrhoea in GW. This study confirms the usefulness of t he method as all abnormal smears were positive and, furthermore, the p redictors for HPV presence in the normal smears corroborate with those found in recent studies of HPV in fresh cervical swabs. Thus, this me thod can be useful for large-scale epidemiological studies of HPV DNA in already sampled material. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.