Cervicovaginal HPV Infection Before and After Hysterectomy: Evidence of Different Tissue Tropism for Oncogenic and Non-Oncogenic HPV Types in a Cohort of HIV-positive and HIV-negative Women

摘要

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is detected in nearly all cervical cancers and approximately half of vaginal cancers. However, vaginal cancer is an order of magnitude less common than cervical cancer, not only in the general population but also among women with HIV/AIDS. It is interesting therefore that recent studies found that HPV was common in both normal vaginal and cervical tissue, with higher prevalence of non-oncogenic HPV types in the vagina. In the current investigation, we prospectively examined HPV infection in 86 HIV-positive and 17 HIV-negative women who underwent hysterectomy during follow-up in a longitudinal cohort. Cervicovaginal lavage specimens were obtained semi-annually and tested for HPV DNA by PCR. To address possible selection biases associated with having a hysterectomy, subjects acted as their own comparison group – before versus after hysterectomy. The average HPV prevalence was higher in HIV-positive than HIV-negative women both before (59% versus 12%; P<0.001) and after hysterectomy (56% versus 6%; P<0.001). Multivariate random effects models (within-individual comparisons) demonstrated significantly lower HPV prevalence (odds ratio [OR]=0.71; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.59-0.85) after hysterectomy. The association of HPV prevalence with hysterectomy was similar among HIV-positive and HIV-negative women. However, hysterectomy had greater effects on oncogenic (OR=0.48; 95%CI=0.35-0.66) than non-oncogenic HPV types (OR=0.89; 95%CI=0.71-1.11; Pinteraction=0.002). Overall, we observed greater reductions in oncogenic than non-oncogenic HPV prevalence following hysterectomy. If correct, these data could suggest that oncogenic HPV have greater tropism for cervical compared with vaginal epithelium, consistent with the lower incidence of vaginal than cervical cancer.