Prevalence and genotype distribution of human papillomavirus in Cheonan, Korea

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is considered to play a critical role in the development of cervical carcinoma, which is the third most common cancer among Korean females. Here, we performed a baseline study of HPV infection and genotyping using an HPV DNA chip, which is a type of oligonucleotide microarray. A total of 6,855 cervical swab specimens from 5,494 women attending Dankook University Hospital Health Improvement Center in Cheonan, Korea between 2006 and 2012, originally collected for HPV infection screening, were genotyped for HPV. The extracted DNA from the cervical specimens was investigated by an HPV DNA chip designed to detect 41 different HPV types. HPV was identified as positive in 1,143 (16.7%) of the 6,855 samples. The most frequently detected HPV genotypes were HPV types 16, 53, 56, 58, 39, 52, 70, 84, 68, 62, 35, 54, 81, 18, and 30, in descending order of incidence. The proportions of single and multiple HPV infections in the HPV-positive specimens were 78.1% and 21.9%, respectively. The average age of HPV-positive patients was 39.9 years, with the positive rate of HPV being the highest in the 10-29 age group (20.6%). We report here on the prevalence and distribution of 41 different genotypes of HPV according to age among women in Cheonan, Korea. These data may be of use as baseline data for the assessment of public health-related issues and for the development of area-specific HPV vaccines.