High prevalence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) type 66 in low-grade cervical lesions of Mexican women

Background HPV-16 infections constitute the highest risk for developing uterine cervix cancer. However, the role of other high-risk types is still controversial. Objective To analyze HR-HPV prevalence and its possible associations between HPV and risk factors related to cervical lesions among Mexican women. Methods Cross sectional study using 362 cervical samples collected between 2016 and 2017. Fourteen HR-HPV types (16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 66 and 68) were detected by highly sensitive PCR amplification followed by reverse hybridization. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to investigate the association between HPV types and risk factors among lesions. Results Most samples were HR-HPV positive (83.43%). HPV-16 was the most prevalent infection among negative for intraepithelial lesions or malignancy (78.6%), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (50%), and cervical cancer (58.2%). HPV-66 showed an unexpected high prevalence in atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (50%), low-grade squamous intraepithelial (45.7%), and only found in 3.6% of cervical cancers. HPV-16 was significantly prevalent among women between 30-39 years, whereas types 66 and 52 were significantly associated when previously sexually transmitted disease had occurred (p< 0.05). Conclusions HPV-66 either in single or co-infection with other HR-HPV types (excluding 16 and 18) might be indicative of non-progressive cancer lesions. HPV-66 prevalence was unusually high in low-grade cervical lesions, predominantly in co-infection with HPV-51, and very low among cervical cancer. This should be addressed to interpret results obtained by methods that group type 66 with other HR-types.