Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal

Abstract

ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND:
World wide, cervical cancer is one of the most common cause of death from cancer in women, HPV testing have a key role in primary cervical screening and the currently accepted view is that HPV is an essential factor in the causation of the disease.
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of the study is to outline the presence of HPV infection in our community through sample of Iraqi's women who attended Central Health Laboratories with normal and abnormal Pap smear during the period from August 2006 to December 2008.
METHODS:
The data were collected from records of the laboratory which includes the information about patients who were referred to the central health laboratories to do HPV test , these data includes: age of the patients , marital state, years after marriage which represents the age of first sexual acts , also the records includes the smoking state, Pap smear results and lastly the HPV test results. HPV testing was done by PCR method , which initially required DNA extraction by MICROGENO DNA from AB Analitica , then DNA Amplificaion by PCR , and finally Electrophoresis for reading the UV light and translating it into certain molecular weight by Molecular Weight Markers.
RESULTS:
The percentage of HPV infection was 15.65 % , the percentage of positive test was 20% among those aged between 20-30 years old , no viruses had been detected above 50 years old . All the cases that have been examined were married and had 15% infection rate among them . The maximum infection rate 20% was among those who had sexual activity for 5-9 years. 91.6% of the infected women were smokers. 5.5% of the women with negative cytological results was infected, 26.3 % of those with ASCUS, 43.3% of those women with CIN I, 45.5% of those with CIN II , and 57% of those with CIN III ; the highest infection rates were 100% among patients with micro-invasive cancer.
CONCLUSION:
-High rate of HPV infection is associated with age , smoking and multiple sexual partners(married more than once).
- High frequency of detection of oncogenic HPV infection are associated with increasing grade of cervical lesion.