We assessed the prevalence characteristics of single and multiple high‐risk human papillomavirus (HR‐HPV) infections. A total of 1783 women who underwent colposcopy and cervical biopsy for abnormal ThinPrep Cytology Test and/or HR‐HPV subtype genotyping results were enrolled in the study. Among the participants, 770 were diagnosed with cervicitis, 395 with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 1 (CIN1), 542 with CIN2‐3, and 76 with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), with HR‐HPV infection rates of 75.8%, 85.8%, 95.9%, and 88.4%, respectively. The prevalence of total and multiple HR‐HPV infections exhibited a bimodal age distribution with a peak at ≤25 years, a decline with age and a second peak at ≥55 years, whereas single HR‐HPV infections exhibited one peak from 35 to 44 years. The four most dominant HPV genotypes were HPV 16 (29.5%), 52 (15.0%), 58 (14.2%), and 18 (10.4%). In total, 67.0%, 70.4%, and 82.1% of patients with CIN1, CIN2‐3, and SCC, respectively, had a single HR‐HPV infection, which increased significantly with the aggravation of the cervical lesion grade (P = 0.045). Patients with a single HPV 16 infection had higher incidences of CIN2+ (62.2%) than those with multiple HPV 16 infections (52.4%) (P = 0.021). Patients coinfected with HPV 16 had higher CIN2+ incidence than those with single HPV 52, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 56, or 59 infections (P < 0.001). This study provided baseline data on the prevalence characteristics of single and multiple HR‐HPV infections in women attending a gynecological outpatient clinic in Beijing.
