Cervical Human Papillomavirus Infection in a Sample of Hispanic Women Living in Puerto Rico: Comparison with Cervical Cytology Reports

Objective: Persistent infection with high-risk (HR ) HPV is a necessary risk factor for the development of cervical cancer. Information on HPV infection is limited in Puerto Rico. This study determined the distribution of HPV types and the association of HR - HPV types with cervical pathology in a clinic-based sample of women in PR. Methods: Data from 92 female participants aged 18 to 34 years and recruited from the University of Puerto Rico-Gynecology Clinic, were analyzed. Cervical cytology was performed. HPV testing was performed using L1 consensus primer PCR with MY09/MY11 primers and typed by dot-blot hybridization. Logistic regression modeling was used to determine the crude and covariate adjusted association between HR -HPV and cervical pathology. Results: Twenty percent (n=18) of the patients had abnormal cytology, 45.7% (n=42) were HPV positive, and 30.4% (n=28) were HR HPV-positive. Women infected with HR -risk HPV types were 7.9 (95% CI = 2.5-25.5) times more likely to have abnormal cytology as compared to women without HR infection when adjusted by age and age at first sexual intercourse. Conclusion: The burden of HPV infection was high, and, as expected, HR HPVs were strongly associated with dysplasia. A population-based study is needed to estimate HPV prevalence and its association with related malignancies in our population. This will be of great value in determining disease burden and will increase awareness of the HPV vaccination in our population.