title: Does pretreatment HPV viral load correlate with prognosis in patients with early stage cervical carcinoma?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Recent data suggest that pretreatment HPV (Human papillomavirus) viral load is useful to predict the severity of intraepithelial lesions of the uterine cervix and formulate a treatment plan. However, the relationship between initial HPV viral load and prognosis of cervical cancer patients has not yet been clearly defined. The objective of this study was to determine whether HPV viral load has prognostic significance in patients with early stage cervical carcinoma treated by surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective review of all patients with early stage cervical carcinoma who underwent radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy at our institution from August 2003 to December 2007 was conducted. Patients were included only if they had pretreatment Hybrid Capture II test for HPV DNA detection.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified 34 patients who met the inclusion criteria. Two groups were identified: patients who had low HPV viral load (</=100 RLU) versus those who had high viral load (>100 RLU). There were no differences in age, FIGO stage, histology, pathologic risk factors - tumor size, deep stromal invasion, lymph-vascular space invasion, parametrial extensions, vaginal margin involvement, and lymph node metastasis - and adjuvant CCRT. There was no significant difference of disease-free survival regard to pretreatment HPV viral load (p=0.7756).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our study, survival was not significantly different between early stage cervical cancer patients who had low and high pretreatment HPV viral load. It seems that pretreatment HPV viral load may not be of help to predict disease prognosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, Korea.
authors.forename: Yong Mi
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jin Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Kyung Mi
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Tae-Wook
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Seung-Chul
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.forename: Woo Young
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jong-Hyuck
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: Suk-Joon
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Ki-Hong
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Hee-Sug
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Ryu