Diversity and uncommon HPV types in HIV seropositive and seronegative women attending an STI clinic

Given the causal relationship between specific types of HPV with cervical cancer and precursor lesions, it is important to identify the viral type involved. The aim of this study is to access the prevalence of HPV types in HIV seropositive and seronegative women. Accordingly, 77 HPV positive cervical samples were obtained from 284 women (seropositive (n=112) and seronegative (n=172) for HIV) who attended a Sexually Transmitted Infection clinic, in Vitoria, Southeastern Brazil. Viral DNA was amplified by PCR using MY09/MY11 degenerated primers and the genotyping was performed by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism. Seventy five out of the 77 HPV samples were genotyped: 6, 11, 13, 16, 18, 26, 31, 31b, 32, 33, 34, 35, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 71, 81, 83, 84. The most prevalent type was HPV16 followed by HPV types 6, 11 and 53. Fifty five percent and 45% belonged to high and low risk types, respectively. High risk types corresponded to 59% and 54.5% of the HPV detected in HIV seronegative and seropositive women, respectively. The uncommon HPV 13 type in cervical samples was also observed in this study. The oncogenic types were more common in the HIV seronegative samples and the number of cases with multiple infections was similar for the two groups. HPV typing is not only important clinically for the establishment of monitoring and treatment of a patient, it also provides knowledge of the viral types circulating in a population, which is of interest in the development of prevention and treatment programs for this disease.