In 2012, Colombia launched human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program for girls ages 9 to 12, and in 2013, the target age was expanded to 9 to 17 years. Monitoring the changes of HPV infection prevalence among young women has been proposed as an endpoint for early assessment of HPV vaccination programs. However, the data on HPV prevalence in young ages are very limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of HPV infection and the distribution of genotypes in a group of nonvaccinated women ages 18 to 25 years old in three Colombian cities as baseline for the monitoring of the HPV national vaccination program. A total of 1,782 sexually active women were included. Cervical smear samples were collected to perform the Pap smear and HPV DNA detection using a Linear Array HPV assay. Of the 1,782 specimens analyzed, 60.3% were positive for any HPV type; 42.2% were positive for high-risk HPV (HR-HVP) types, and 44.4% for low-risk HPV (LR-HPV) types. Multiple and single infections were identified in 37.1% and 23.2% of samples, respectively. HR-HPV types -16, -52, and -51 were the most predominant with proportions of 11.3%, 7.92%, and 7.9%, correspondingly. The prevalence for HR-HPV 16/18 was 14.4%. HR-HPV prevalence in women with abnormal cytology (75.16%) was higher than in women with normal cytology (38.6%). In conclusion, a high prevalence of HR-HPV was observed among younger women. This HPV type-specific prevalence baseline may be used to monitor postvaccination longitudinal changes and to determine its impact on HPV-related disease incidence in Colombia population. .

The lack of breast cancer screening in low and middle‐income countries results in later stage diagnosis and worsened outcomes for women. A cluster randomized trial was performed in Bogotá, Colombia between 2008 and 2012 to evaluate effects of opportunistic breast cancer screening. Thirteen clinics were randomized to an intervention arm and 13 to a control arm. Physicians in intervention clinics were instructed to perform clinical breast examination on all women aged 50–69 years attending clinics for non‐breast health issues, and then refer them for mammographic screening. Physicians in control clinics were not explicitly instructed to perform breast screening or mammography referrals, but could do so if they thought it indicated (“usual care”). Women were followed for 2‐years postrandomization. 7,436 women were enrolled and 7,419 (99.8%) screened in intervention clinics, versus 8,419 enrolled and 1,108 (13.1%) screened in control clinics. Incidence ratios (IR) of early, advanced and all breast cancers were 2.9 (95% CI 1.1–9.2), 1.0 (0.3–3.5) and 1.9 (0.9–4.1) in the first (screening) year of the trial, and the cumulative IR for all breast cancers converged to 1.4 (0.7–2.8) by the end of follow‐up (Year 2). Eighteen (69.2%) of 26 women with early stage disease had breast conservation surgery (BCS) versus 6 (42.5%) of 14 women with late‐stage disease (p = 0.02). Fifteen (68.2%) of 22 women with breast cancer in the intervention group had BCS versus nine (50.0%) of 18 women in the control group (p = 0.34). Well‐designed opportunistic clinic‐based breast cancer screening programs may be useful for early breast cancer detection in LMICs.

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Cervical cancer remains one of the most common cancers in women worldwide. According to GLOBOCAN statistics on cervical cancer (1), there were approximately 528,000

Background: Few studies have analyzed the association between human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) protein expression (nuclear and cytoplasmic localization), hTERT methylation status, and human papillomavirus (HPV) genotype infection in cervical cancer. Patients and Methods: One hundred seventy-three patients with cervical cancer were analyzed. hTERT protein expression was detected by immunohistochemistry. hTERT DNA methylation analysis was performed using a PCR-RLB-hTERT assay, targeting two regions of the hTERT promoter. Type specific HPV infection was detected by using GP5+/GP6+PCR-RLB. Results: hTERT protein expression was found in both cytoplasm and nucleus (78.0% of the samples showed a cytoplasmic localization and 79.8% had a nuclear localization). A statistically significant association was found between alpha 9 and 7 HPV species with a nonmethylation pattern of the hTERT promoter and between these species and high expression of hTERT protein with nuclear localization. Conclusion: hTERT protein is found in both the nucleus and cytoplasm of patients with cervical cancer and confirm the relationship between the nonmethylated status of hTERT promoter and some HPV species as well as the relationship between these species and hTERT protein expression. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated a strong causal relationship between persistent infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), especially high-risk HPV (HRHPV) types and the development of cervical cancer (1). In vitro studies have shown that neoplastic transformation of cells infected with HRHPV is mainly due to telomerase activation by the action of HPV E6 oncoprotein (2). Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex with terminal transferase activity and is made up by an RNA component (hTR), a catalytic protein subunit (hTERT) and the telomerase associated protein TEP1 (3). Some studies have shown a significant telomerase expression and telomerase activity levels in different types of cancer (e.g. lung, pancreas, hepatocellular, prostate, skin and certain gastrointestinal tumors) and malignant cell lines, while their levels are very low in 615 This article is freely accessible online.