Distribution of Human Papillomavirus Types in Different Histological Subtypes of Cervical Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Little information is available regarding distribution of HPV types in different histological subtypes of adenocarcinoma (AC). Thus, in this study we examined the frequency of high-risk (hr) HPV types in AC, adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS) and adenosquamous carcinoma (ADSQ). A total of 102 cases of primary cervical adenocarcinoma (26 AIS and 76 invasive AC) obtained from pathology files from 1995–2006 were histologically subtyped. Our results demonstrated that endocervical type occupied the major subtype of AC (22/66) followed by ADSQ (17/66) where as in the group of AIS endocervical type (12/23) was followed by intestinal type of AIS (7/23). Successful DNA extraction was obtained in 89 samples; 81 out of 89 (91.0%) tested positive for HPV DNA. The prevalence of HPV DNA in AIS, AC and ADSQ was 91.3% (21/23), 90.9% (60/66) and 94.1% (16/17), respectively. We found HPV 18 type to be the most predominant type in AIS (11/21) and AC (17/60) followed by HPV of undeternmined type in AIS (3/21) and HPV 16 in AC (9/60) as the sole viral type. HPV 18 was most frequently detected type in all histological subtypes of AIS and AC. We have detected HPV DNA in all 5 samples of clear cell carcinoma (CCC), although other studies have reported a highly variable prevalence of HPV DNA in CCC. The most prevalent HPV type in ADSQ was HPV-16 followed by HPV 33 as single type. The observed overall predominance of HPV 18 in AIS ( 2= 6.109, p£ 0.025) and AC ( 2 = 8.927, p£0.01) as well as of HPV 16 in ADSQ ( 2 = 10.164, p £ 0.01) was statistically significant. Our data revealed statistically significant predominance of single hrHPV infections in AIS (16/21; 2 = 11.523, p £ 0.001) and AC (37/60; 2 = 6.533, p £ 0.025) whereas multiple hrHPV infections were more abundant in AC comparing to AIS (23/81and 5/81, respectively; 2 = 13.989, p £ 0.001)