Viral load of human papillomavirus as a predictor of the severity of cervical lesions in women with atypical cells at pap smear - Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia

PURPOSE: to assess the performance of hybrid capture II (HCII) HPV viral load in predicting the grade of cervical lesions. METHODS: between August 2000 to November 2002, 309 women admitted due to an abnormal Pap smear result were recruited. Histological disease confirmation was done in all women and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 or above was considered as severe disease. HCII was done for high-risk HPV types and viral load was estimated in relative light units (RLU). Receiver operating characteristics analysis was used to test the performance of HCII. RESULTS: histological findings included 140 (45.3%) cervicitis or CIN 1 and 199 (54.7%) CIN 2/3, in situ adenocarcinoma or invasive cancer. The best cutoff for HCII in detecting severe disease was 35 RLU, showing a sensitivity of 69% and a specificity of 70%. Association of high-grade cervical lesions at Pap smear and HCII at 35 RLU showed a positive predictive value of 88.2% in diagnosis of CIN 2 or above. On the other hand, 95.7% of the women with low grade lesion at cytology and HCII below 1 RLU presented no severe histological disease. CONCLUSIONS: the best performance of HCII in diagnosing CIN 2 or above was found at 35 RLU. Association of cytology and HCII in different settings provided very high positive and negative predictive values.