Human papillomavirus Posttreatment Clearance Time in Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia and Invasive Cervical Cancer

The aim of the study was to determine an appropriate follow-up schedule for human papillomavirus (HPV) detection by evaluating the clearance time of HPV after treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on 97 high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2–3) patients and 437 early invasive cervical cancer (CC) (stages Ia–IIa) patients who received radical surgery at the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University. Patient medical information, including personal information, pathological diagnosis, HPV infection status, and therapeutic methods, was obtained through the hospital's historical medical records management system. The clearance time of HPV was determined using Kaplan-Meier method analysis, and clearance time of HPV among different age groups, different grades, and different clinical stages were compared using the log-rank test. RESULTS: The median clearance time of all patients was 10.4 months. The median clearance time was longer in HSIL patients than in early invasive CC patients (p < .05). No statistical significance was found among different HSIL grades, CC stages, or patient age groups (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Delaying first posttreatment follow-up to 9 months in patients at high risk of noncompliance could potentially reduce burden of cost and repeated clinical visits. This follow-up approach could be consistently applied to all women regardless of age, severity, and extent of disease.