Differences in age-specific HPV prevalence between self-collected and health personnel collected specimen in a cross-sectional study in Ghana

BACKGROUND: HPV infections are ubiquitous and particularly common among sexually active young women. However, there are regional and national variations in age-specific HPV prevalence, which have implications for cervical cancer control. Data on age-specific HPV prevalences for Ghana and most sub-Saharan countries are scanty. Therefore, this study primarily sought to determine the age-specific HPV prevalence among women in a Ghanaian community and to determine whether these prevalences determined with health-personnel and self-collected specimens were comparable. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, conducted between March 2012 and March 2013, cervical specimens were collected by self- and health-personnel collection from 251 women who were between the ages of 15 and 65 years. HPV present in these specimens were genotyped by a nested-multiplex PCR and Luminex fluoro-microspheres based method. Information on the demographic, sexual and reproductive characteristics of the women were also obtained. A Chi-square test of association was employed to determine the association of the distribution of age groups with each categorised sexual and reproductive characteristic and HPV risk type’s status. RESULTS: The age group distribution of the participants was significantly associated with overall (χ (2) = 36.1; p = 0.001), high risk (χ (2) = 26.09; p = 0.002) and low risk (χ (2) = 21.49; p = 0.011) HPV prevalences. The age-specific HPV prevalence pattern for each of the HPV risk types, determined with self-collected specimen, showed three peaks (at 20–24 years; 40–44 years and ≥ 55 years), while those determined with health-personnel collected specimen, showed two peaks (at 20–24 years and ≥ 55 years) for each HPV risk type’s prevalence pattern. The high risk HPV prevalences determined with self-collected specimen were often higher than those determined with health-personnel specimen for the age groups between 25 and 45 years, who are mostly targeted for screening by HPV testing. Additionally, there were interesting variations in patterns of age-specific HPV genotype-specific prevalence between the two specimen collection methods. CONCLUSIONS: The usefulness of self-collected specimen for high risk HPV burden determination and the existence of a two peaked and three peaked age-specific HPV prevalences in Ghana have been clearly indicated. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13027-017-0136-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.