Introduction:

It is still controversial the biological connotation of multiple infections with high-risk human papillomaviruses (hrHPV), that belong to the genus Alphapapillomavirus, for the cervical carcinogenesis.

Objective:

To provide information on the circulation of hrHPV, genus Alphapapillomavirus, specie 9, and the multiple infections in Ecuadorian women with intraepithelial lesions and cervical cancer.

Methods:

300 women, from the coastal region of Ecuador, were screened. Viral infection was detected in cervix samples by nested PCR with MY09/11 and GP5/GP6 generic primers. Viral genotypes were identified using the commercial kit ANYPLEX II VPH28. The prevalence ratio (PR) was used to measure the association between cytological lesions and the simple, multiple or combined genotype infections.

Results:

Ninety-two percent of women (276/300) tested positive for HPV. Frequency of infection for single genotypes was high, mainly those of high oncogenic risk. The most frequent hrHPV genotypes were HPV58 (18.17%), 70 (8.64%), 53 (8.34%), 35 (7.45%), 16 (7.37%), 33 (6.55%), 31 (5.58%) and 18 (4.24%). In 91.66% (253/300) of the samples, multiple infections were detected, with up to 13 types in a single patient, including various species from the genus Alphapapillomavirus. The combination HPV16/HPV58 was the most frequent on high-grade lesions (PR = 2.9; p = 0,000), and HPV16/HPV58/HPV70 triple co-infection prevailed in women with cervical cancer (PR = 3.5; p = 0.007).

Conclusions:

The results evidence that the combination HPV16/HPV58, genus Alphapapillomavirus, specie 9, could be a key factor in the occurrence of premalignant lesions and their evolution into cervical cancer.

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