Women aged 50 years and older with CIN3 showed a significant reduction of high-grade lesion predictors along with physiological confounding cervical changes (transformation zone type 3 and endocervical lesion location). The diagnostic work-up of cervical lesions in older women should provide their potential consideration as a special population.
The presence of high-risk and probable high-risk HPV genotypes was lowest among older patients before conization and was highest among these patients post-conization; post-treatment HPV clearance decreased with age and increasing age could be a risk factor for post-conization recurrence.
Objective
To evaluate partial HPV16/18 genotyping as a possible biomarker to select women attending HPV‐based cervical cancer screening at higher risk to be referred to colposcopy.
Design
Population‐based cohort study.
Setting
Organised cervical cancer screening programmes (Italy).
Population
Women with high‐risk HPV infection (period: 2015–2019).
Methods
We analysed the association between partial HPV16/18 genotyping, cytology triage and histologically confirmed diagnosis of high‐grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN3+) lesions.
Main outcome measures
Detection rate (DR) and positive predictive value (PPV) for histologically confirmed CIN3+ (any episode in the 2 years after baseline); sensitivity for CIN3+ and number of colposcopies needed for lesion detection.
Results
The study included 145 437 women screened with HPV testing by the clinically validated COBAS 4800 HPV assay (Roche). Overall, 9601 (6.6%) women were HPV+ at baseline; HPV16 and HPV18 were present in 1865 and 594 samples, respectively. The cumulative (baseline plus 1‐year repeat) cytology positivity was 42.8% and high‐grade cytology was significantly higher (P < 0.0001) among women with HPV16 infection at baseline (15.2%). The cumulative CIN3+ DR for women with HPV16, HPV18 and other HPV‐type infections was 9.8%, 3.4% and 1.8%, respectively.
Conclusions
Partial HPV16 genotyping may play a role in triage, whereas HPV18 seems to behave much more similarly to the other HPV types and does not provide additional stratification. HPV16 genotyping combined with high‐grade cytology can be envisaged as a triage biomarker in cervical screening to maximise CIN3+ detection while minimising colposcopy at baseline or 1‐year repeat.
Tweetable abstract
HPV16 genotyping combined with high‐grade cytology can be used as triage biomarker for CIN3+ in HPV‐positive women.
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