Human papillomavirus type 16 variants in paired enrollment and follow-up cervical samples: implications for a proper understanding of type-specific persistent infections.

Xi, Long Fu; Koutsky, Laura A; Castle, Philip E; Edelstein, Zoe R; Hulbert, Ayaka; Schiffman, Mark; Kiviat, Nancy B · J Infect Dis · 2010

rct · Level II

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Abstract

Prospective studies of the persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) variants are rare and typically small. We sequenced HPV-16 variants in longitudinal pairs of specimens from 86 women enrolled in the ASCUS-LSIL Triage Study. A change of variants was identified in 4 women (4.7% [95% confidence interval, 1.3%-11.5%]). Among women with intervening HPV results (n = 60), a variant switch occurred in 2 of 11 who had evidence of intervening negativity for HPV-16, compared with 1 of 49 who consistently tested positive (P = .11). These results suggest the possibility that rare misclassification of transient infections as persistent infections occurs in natural history studies of type-specific HPV infections.

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