Molecular detection of Human Papillomavirus from abnormal cervical cytology of women attending a tertiary health facility in Ido-ekiti, Southwest Nigeria
ABSTRACTBackground: Human papillomavirus (HPV) has been implicated as one of the principal causes of cervical cancer, which is the second highest cause of cancer deaths among Nigerian women. Objective: This study was aimed at determining the presence of HPV DNA in abnormal cervical cytology of a group of women who were screened using Papanicolaou staining technique.Methodology: A total of 200 women attending the Obstetrics and Gyneacology clinic of Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti were screened using the convectional Pap smear screening, while positive samples were subjected to molecular analyses using DNA isolation techniques and polymerase chain reaction (PCR).Result: Results revealed that 14 (7%) of the subjects were positive for abnormal cytology. Abnormalities found among the subjects included; low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) which constituted 50 % of the total abnormal smears, high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) and atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) which were 28.6% and 21.4% respectively. Results of molecular analyses showed that all the samples from abnormal cervical cytology subjected to HPV DNA extraction and gene amplification all contained the HPV DNA.Conclusion: The high prevalence of HPV DNA in abnormal cytology, gives credence to the fact that HPV presence is a critical indicator in the development of cervical cancer, thus more efforts should be put into vaccine production and distribution to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in Nigeria Keywords: Cervical, cytology, DNA, molecular, wome