Diagnostic value of high‐risk human papillomavirus viral load on cervical lesion assessment and ASCUS triage

This study aims to evaluate HR‐HPV viral load in the cervical lesion assessment and its diagnostic value on the triage of ASCUS. The three‐step protocol for cervical cancer screening was carried out in 5171 patients from June 2017 to August 2019, and 1620 histopathological results were obtained. The positive rate of HR‐HPV and TCT increased with the aggravation of pathological grades of cervical lesions. The sensitivity and specificity of HR‐HPV (DH3) to detect CIN II+ were 91.91% and 84.46%, respectively. In comparison, the corresponding results of the cytology test were 80.51% and 83.12%. HPV16/18 viral load was positively correlated with the grade of cervical lesions (p < 0.001, r = 0.321). The diagnostic efficiency of AUC by applying HPV16/18 viral load was 0.682 for the diagnosis of CIN II+. The optimal HPV16/18 viral load for predicting CIN II+ was 6.80 RLU/CO (relative light units/cut‐off), with corresponding sensitivity of 48.6%, specificity of 79.7%, and Youden index of 0.283. In the ASCUS population, viral loads were statistically different in HPV16/18 and the other 12 HR‐HPV when compared cervicitis group with CIN I group and CIN II+ group (all p < 0.05). Statistical differences were detected concerning HPV16/18 viral load, contact bleeding status, and smoking status when compared cervicitis group with CIN I group and CIN II+ group (p < 0.05), with a corresponding odds ratio of 1.004, 1.533, and 5.513, respectively. Our findings suggest that HR‐HPV viral load can be regarded as a useful tool to predict the grade of cervical lesions for ASCUS triage. ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03178136.