VI. The relationship between aneuploid and polyploid cervical lesions

Human papillomaviral infection is now widely implicated in the causation of cervical neoplasia. Genotype analysis provides the best guide to biologic outcome; most polyploid lesions regress and most aneuploid ones persist or progress. This prospective survey examined the relationships between cell ploidy and 24 objectively validated criteria of human papillomaviral infection or premalignant change in 52 biopsies from a dysplasia clinic. Histologic .evidence of benign warty expression and human papillomaviral capsid antigen production decreased sieadi!y as DNA content ranged from diploidy to polyploidy to aneuploidy. In contrast, premalignant change increased with progressive distortion of nuclear DNA content. No absolute discriminants were found beiween polyploidy and aneuploidy, as evidenced by the detection of human papillomaviral proteins in three ·of 21 aneuploid epithelia and the recognition of abnormai mitotic figures in five of 1i polyploid lesions. Polyploid and aneuploid lesions differed only in severity, and it appears that some polyploid epithelia may be transition forms between diploidy and aneuploidy. (AM . J . OBSTET. GYNECOL. 150:189, 1984.)