Association between high-risk human papillomavirus DNA load and cervical intraepithelial lesion

Objective:To determine the association between viral load of high risk type human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) and stage of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) lesion. Methods: Cervical exfoliated cells were collected from patients in our hospital. HPV DNA was detected by hybrid capture2 (HC_2) system, and viral load was measured by the ratios of relative light units compared to standard positive control (RLU/PC). Log10RLU/PC were categorized into four groups: negative(0),low viral load(0~1.14),medium viral load(1.15~2.28), and high viral load(2.29~3.44). Cervical lesions were diagnozed by biopsies as normal, CIN1, CIN2 and CIN3. Results: 98.0(50/51)of CIN3, 93.3(28/30)of CIN2, 72.2(13/18)of CIN1, and 50(161/322)of normal women were positive for HPV DNA. The median log10RLU/PC for the positive women with CIN3, CIN2, CIN1 and in normal woman were 2.18, 1.59, 1.49 and 1.47 respectively. The odds ratio (OR) between low viral load of HPV DNA and CIN1 was 1.7 (0.5~7.2) while between high viral load and CIN3 OR was 88.6 (11.6~676.7) which showed that higher viral load could increase the risk of cervical lesions (P0.001). Conclusion: CINs are highly influenced by HR-HPV viral load.