Community-based prevalence versus hospital-based incidence of genital Human Papillomavirus infection in Central Vietnam.

Background: This study aims to determine the genital HPV prevalence in reproductive-age women in Thua Thien Hue Province and comparison with HPV incidence in Hue University Hospital, Vietnam.

Methods: Cross-sectional study on 1,034 women of reproductive age from 11 communes/wards of three districts representing three different geographic areas of Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam. The hospital-based group included 102 women with cervicitis and/or abnormal Pap smear result coming to Hue University Hospital. Extracting DNA from cervical samples, performing the real-time PCR for detecting HPV and the reverse dot-blot assay for HPV typing in HPV positive cases.

Results: In community, HPV prevalence was 0.9%. Mean-age of HPV positive group was 37.9 ± 6.2 years. The detected low-risk types were 6 and 11; high-risk types include 16, 18, 33, 45, 52, and 58. Single-type infection was found in 66.7% of cases. In hospital-based group, 41.2% of women have been infected with HPV, 6 different HPV types were detected. HPV18 was the most frequent high-risk type (33.3%), followed by HPV16 (15.1%); HPV6 was the most frequent among low-risk HPV types (31.2%). Single-type infection rate was 33,3%; 2 and 3 types co-infections were 28,6% and 38.1%, respectively.

Conclusions: Routine screening of high-risk HPV infection in women with symptomatic gynecologic infection and/or abnormal Pap smear appears to be benefit in early detection and prevention of cervical cancer, due to the high incidence of HPV infection.