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Published on: March 8, 2012
High-Risk Human Papillomavirus Positive-Negative-Positive Infection Pattern Revealed Infection Below the Screening
Nolwen Di Domizio, Channel Bertin1, Rajeev Ramanah2
1CHU Besançon, Centre National de Référence Papillomavirus, Besançon, France.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to characterize human papillomavirus (HPV) using a highly sensitive genotyping test on smears collected longitudinally that showed a positive-negative-positive infection pattern with a screening test.
Methods:
Women with positive-negative-positive high-risk (hr) HPV test results using the Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2) assay were identified between 2015 and 2021. Corresponding cervical smears were obtained from the biobank and analyzed using a sensitive reverse line blot genotyping assay for the detection of 32 HPV genotypes.
Results:
Among 10,512 women, 29 (0.27%) were identified with the compatible pattern of hrHPV infection. Among the 29 HC2-negative samples, 27 (93%) were readily positive by the genotyping assay. Of these 29 women, 14 had a history of cervical lesions and had undergone surgical treatment, and the pattern of infection was likely to be related to treatment efficacy. The remaining 15 women had either persistent or transient infection with low viral titers in HC2-negative samples. No pattern of infection compatible with latent infection was observed.
Conclusions:
hrHPV positive-negative-positive infection patterns were rare in the authors' cohort. hrHPV DNA negativity with the Hybrid Capture 2 test was mainly explained by the presence of HPV below the assay cutoff. Therefore, the authors' study does not provide clear evidence of HPV latency but rather of subclinical infection with low viral load.
