1999 Volume 73 Issue 3 Pages 233-238
The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of infection due to human papillomavirus (HPV) types of high and intermediate oncogenic risk, which was mostfrequently associated with uterine cervical neoplasia. The subjects were 236 prostitutes who visited a sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinic in a metropolitan area in 1998. Another 95 women who visited a university hospital were selected as a normal control group. A swab sample collected from the uterine cervix and external os was subjected to hybrid capture assays for low-oncogenic-risk HPV types (HPVA; including types 6, 11, 42, 43 and 44) and high-and intermediate-oncogenic-risk HPV types (HPVB; including16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59 and 68), Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseriagonorrhoeae. Fisher's exact test was used for statistical analyses. Among the microorganisms tested, the positive rate for HPV B was the highest both in the women attending the STD clinic (STD group) and in the control group. The positive rate for HPV B in the STD group was47.5% (112 of 236), and this was significantly higher than the5.3% (5 of 95) in the control group (p<0.0001). These findings suggest that HPVexamination is recommended for women who visit an STD clinic to assess the future risk of cervicalneoplasia.
