Value of human papillomavirus typing for detection of anal cytological abnormalities

The objective of this study was to evaluate anal cytology and human papillomavirus (HPV) typing in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection.

Anal samples were collected from 61 patients (44 men and 17 women) and analyzed by PapilloCheck test and conventional cytology.

Of all anal samples, 37.7% had cytological abnormalities, 47.54% were negative and 14.75% were unsatisfactory. High-risk HPV, multiple high-risk HPV and HPV 16 infection was detected in 91.13%, 78.26% and 47.82% of the samples with cytological abnormalities and in 47.54%, 6.89% and 3.44% of the negative samples, respectively. High-risk HPV infection was significantly more frequent in anal samples with cytological abnormalities than in negative samples (P = 0.0005, Fisher's test), particularly multiple high-risk HPV infection (P < 0.0001) and HPV 16 infection (P = 0.0002).

High-risk HPV, multiple high-risk HPV and HPV 16 infections are significantly associated with anal cytological abnormalities. Furthermore, the frequency of HPV infection in anal cytological samples suggests that high-risk HPV detection has high sensitivity, but low specificity for detection of anal cytological abnormalities, but multiple high-risk HPV typing and HPV 16 typing have a lower sensitivity and high specificity. Results suggest that HPV typing may be useful as an adjunct to cytology to screen patients for high-resolution anoscopy and biopsy.