title: The Prevalence of Cervical Human Papillomavirus Infection and the Most At-risk Genotypes Among Iranian Healthy Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  One of the most common sexual-transmitted infections among women is human papillomavirus (HPV) infection which is associated with genital cancers. Different studies in Iran reported various prevalences, and combining their results could be important for health policy makers. This study aims to determine the total prevalence of HPV infection as well as its related genotypes, particularly HPV16 and HPV18 among Iranian healthy women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Searching the Scientific Information Database, Iranmedex, Magiran, Irandoc, PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and ScienceDirect databanks using relevant keywords and excluding duplicates and irrelevant evidence followed by applying exclusion criteria and quality assessment, eligible articles were selected. Standard error of the prevalence was calculated based on binomial distribution. Random effects model was used because of the high heterogeneity among the results.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 14 studies entered into the systematic review, 24 pieces of evidence reported the HPV prevalence among 7655 healthy and noncancerous women in different Provinces of Iran. Total prevalence of HPV, 9.4% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.8-12.02); HPV16, 2.03% (95% CI: 1.3-2.8); HPV18, 1.7% (95% CI: 0.9-2.5); and other genotypes of HPV, 5.3% (95% CI: 3.6-6.9) were estimated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our meta-analysis showed that the total prevalence of HPV and its high-risk genotypes (16 and 18) among healthy noncancerous Iranian women was very high.
authors.affiliation: Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, Student Research Committee, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Mina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Malary
authors.affiliation: Health Sciences Research Center, Faculty of Health, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahmood
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moosazadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Zeinab
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hamzehgardeshi
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Zabol University of Medical Sciences, Zabol, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Afshari
authors.affiliation: Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, Student Research Committee, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Iman
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Moghaddasifar
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Shoole of Medicine, Zabol University of Medical Sciences, Zabol, Iran.
authors.forename: Amin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Afsharimoghaddam
keywords: Cervix; Iran; genotype; human papillomavirus; polymerase chain reaction; prevalence