HPV PREVALENCE AMONG MEXICAN WOMEN WITH NEOPLASTIC AND NORMAL CERVIXES

Genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is causally linked to cer vical cancer, yet little is known regarding HPV prevalence in cancerou s and normal women in Mexico, a country with a high cervical cancer in cidence. We studied 185 Mexican women among the patients attending gyn ecological outpatient clinics in four hospitals in Mexico City. Each w oman had a Pap smear, a colposcopy, and, when necessary, a biopsy. HPV s were identified by a consensus-primer-based polymerase chain reactio n (PCR) assay. HPV was detected in 87% of 69 cancers, 83% of 24 high-g rade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HGSILs), 33% of 21 low-grade sq uamous intraepithelial lesions (LGSILs), and 17% of 71 normals. Twenty -one of the 32 HPV types tested were detected at least once. The ratio of high-risk:low-risk types was 87:6 in HGSILs and cancers, compared to 11:8 for LGSILs and normals. In invasive cancers, HPV types found a t the highest frequency were, in descending order: HPV-16, -18, and -4 5, followed by -39, -59, and -58 with the same frequency. HPV-16 and r elated types were present in 52% of the cancer cases, as well as in 79 % of HGSILs, and HPV-18 and related types were present in 36% of the c ancers but in only 12.5% of the HGSILs. HPV-16 was predominant in squa mous carcinomas, and HPV-18 and related types were predominant in aden osquamous carcinoma. Both biopsies and scrapes were tested for HPVs in 63 women, all of them with cervical neoplasia. Identical HPV results were obtained in 89% of the samples, but additional types were often i dentified in scrapes. HPV prevalence and type distribution in cervical cancer in Mexico was similar to that reported worldwide, as well as i n other Latin American countries. (C) 1998 Academic Press.