Persistence of newly detected human papillomavirus type 31 infection, stratified by variant lineage
Menée aux Etats-Unis sur 160 femmes nouvellement diagnostiquées avec une infection par le papillomavirus humain de type 31, cette étude analyse la persistence du virus, en fonction de l'origine ethnique de la patiente et du variant du virus (A, B ou C)
Variants of human papillomavirus (HPV) type 31 have been shown to be related both to risk of cervical lesions and racial composition of a population. It is largely undetermined whether variants differ in their likelihood of persistence. Study subjects were women who participated in the ASCUS-LSIL Triage Study and who had a newly detected HPV31 infection during a 2-year follow-up with 6-month intervals. HPV31 isolates were characterized by sequencing and assigned to 1 of 3 variant lineages. Loss of the newly detected HPV31 infection was detected in 76 (47.5%) of the 160 women (32/67 with A variants, 16/27 with B variants, and 28/66 with C variants). The adjusted hazard ratio associating loss of the infection was 1.2 (95% CI, 0.7-2.1) for women with A variants and 2.1 (95% CI, 1.2-3.5) for women with B variants as compared to those with C variants. Infections with A and C variants were detected in 50 and 41 Caucasian women and in 15 and 23 African-American women, respectively. The likelihood of clearance of the infection was significantly lower in African-American women with C variants than in African-American women with A variants (P=0.05). There was no difference in the likelihood of clearance between A and C variants among Caucasian women. Our data indicated that infections with B variants were more likely to resolve than those with C variants. The difference in clearance of A versus C variants in African-Americans but not in Caucasians suggests a possibility of the race-related influence in retaining the variant-specific infection. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.