Characteristics of women infected with human papillomavirus in a tertiary hospital in Beijing China, 2014–2018

BACKGROUND: Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the main cause of precancerous lesions and cervical cancer in women. In order to determine the epidemiological characteristics as well as the relationship between the HPV genotype and cytology test results among women in Beijing, China, we retrospectively collected and analyzed the data from a tertiary hospital in Beijing, China. METHODS: A total of 21,239 women visited the China–Japan Friendship Hospital between 2014 and 2018 and their cervical exfoliations were collected. Thirteen HPV subtypes (16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59 and 68) were examined and ThinPrep cytological test (TCT) was performed. RESULTS: Among all cases, 4473 (21.06%) women were infected with HPV. HPV52 (4.64%), HPV16 (4.44%) and HPV58 (4.28%) had higher prevalence. Single-type infection (77.26%) was more common than multiple-type infection (22.74%). Single-type infection was more frequently seen in women aged 50–60 years (17.17%), and multiple-type infection was more common in those aged < 30 years (7.88%). Significant differences in secular trends from 2014 to 2018 were observed for subtypes HPV39, 51, 52 and 58. HPV positive rates of women aged < 30 and 30–40 years changed significantly along with the time period, and the TCT positive rates of women aged 30–40, 40–50, 50–60 and > 60 years also showed significant differences from 2014 to 2018. In addition, 1746 (8.22%) women were TCT positive, of whom, 858 (4.04%), 561 (2.64%) and 327 (1.54%) had atypical squamous cells (ASCs), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSILs) and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSILs), respectively. Among four types of cytological lesions, the HPV infection rates were 16.76, 66.08, 63.99 and 85.32% in those negative for intraepithelial lesions or malignancy (NILM), ASC, LSIL and HSIL, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: HPV52, 16 and 58 are the most common infection subtypes in this study and among four types of cytological lesions, HSILs has the highest HPV prevalence. Significant differences in secular trends are observed for different subtypes in recent 5 years. The results on HPV genotype-specific prevalence should be considered when the HPV vaccine program is implemented in Beijing area.