Genotype spectrum of cervical human papillomavirus infection among sexually transmitted disease clinic patients in Hong Kong

Previous studies have suggested that a few uncommon human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes are prevalent in Chinese cervical cancer patients. To elucidate the genotype spectrum of HPVs circulating among Hong Kong Chinese, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 553 women who attended a public sexually transmitted disease clinic. HPV DNA was detected from cervical samples using the polymerase chain reaction, followed by genotype identification based on restriction fragment length polymorphism and direct sequencing. The prevalence of HPV was 30.6% for all types combined, 14.8% for high-risk types, 10.8% for low-risk types, and 7.1% for unknown-risk types. Among the HPV-positive women, 89.9% had single type infections; whereas the other 10.1% harboured more than one HPV type. HPV11 was the most prevalent genotype, detected in 5.1% of subjects; followed by HPV16 (4.9%), HPV58 (4.3%), HPV6 (3.3%), and HPV53 and CP8304 (2.2% each). Other less common genotypes found were HPV18, 33, 39, 61, LVX160, MM4, MM7 (range: 0.7-1.6%); HPV26, 45, 54, 56, 59, and LVX100 (range: 0.4-0.5%); HPV35, 40, 52, 55, 68, MM8, and MM9 (0.2% each). This study shows that HPV58 is the second most common high-risk HPV genotype circulating among Chinese female sexually transmitted disease clinic patients in Hong Kong. This together with previous reports of the high prevalence of HPV58 among Chinese cervical cancer patients accentuate the importance of developing vaccines targeting at this otherwise uncommon genotype.