Human papillomavirus type 16 variants in paired enrollment and follow-up cervical samples: implications for a proper understanding of type-specific persistent infections.
Prospective studies of the persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) variants are rare and typically small. We sequenced HPV-16 variants in longitudinal pairs of specimens from 86 women enrolled in the ASCUS-LSIL Triage Study. A change of variants was identified in 4 women (4.7% [95% confidence interval, 1.3%-11.5%]). Among women with intervening HPV results (n = 60), a variant switch occurred in 2 of 11 who had evidence of intervening negativity for HPV-16, compared with 1 of 49 who consistently tested positive (P = .11). These results suggest the possibility that rare misclassification of transient infections as persistent infections occurs in natural history studies of type-specific HPV infections.
Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle 98104, USA. longfu@u.washington.edu
Long Fu
LF
Xi
Laura A
LA
Koutsky
Philip E
PE
Castle
Zoe R
ZR
Edelstein
Ayaka
A
Hulbert
Mark
M
Schiffman
Nancy B
NB
Kiviat
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002584:Cervix Uteri / Q000821:virology*; D005260:Female; D052162:Human papillomavirus 16 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011446:Prospective Studies; D017421:Sequence Analysis; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*; D014626:Vaginal Smears; D055815:Young Adult; D002578:Uterine Cervical Dysplasia / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*