Evaluation of the detection of 14 high-risk human papillomaviruses with HPV 16 and HPV 18 genotyping for cervical cancer screening

The American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP) suggests that women ≥30 years old, with a negative cytopathological test but a positive high-risk (HR) human papillomavirus (HPV) test should undergo HPV 16 and HPV 18 genotyping. If this test is positive, immediate cervical pathology is required. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and clinical value of testing for 14 HR HPVs with HPV 16 and HPV 18 genotyping for cervical cancer (CC) screening. A total of 424 females from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital were selected and randomly divided into two groups (A and B). All participants underwent two different testing methods: the liquid-based cytology test (LCT) and a HPV DNA test. For the HPV DNA test, participants in group A underwent the hybrid capture II (HC-II) testing method while participants in group B were tested using the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR; HBRT-H14) method. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value for the detection of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade II or greater using HBRT-H14 were 96.30, 78.17, 23.21 and 99.68%, respectively. In Group B, compared with other HR HPV types, HPV 16 and HPV 18 infection led to the increased possibility of cervical lesions graded CIN II or higher (8.11 and 51.28%, respectively). A significant difference in the rates of CC and CIN II or higher was observed among women who were i) infected with HPV 16 and/or HPV 18, ii) infected with other HR HPV types and iii) diagnosed as negative for HR HPV infection (χ(2)=93.976, P=0.0001). In conclusion, HBRT-H14 is applicable for CC screening with the advantage of genotyping for HPV 16 and HPV 18, which may help to improve triage management for women with negative cytology.