Anal HPV infection in Slovenian men who have sex with men

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Anal human papillomavirus (HPV) infection commonly affects men who have sex with men (MSM) and is associated with the development of anal cancer, with the highest prevalence in MSM who are positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of anal HPV infection and genotype distribution in Slovenian MSM and its correlation with behavioral patterns in order to predict the possible impact of quadrivalent HPV vaccine in this population. To our knowledge, this is the first study of prevalence and genotype distribution of anal HPV infection in MSM from any of the Eastern European countries. The study included 136 MSM who visited two outpatient offices from January 2007 through December 2008. All participants were clinically examined and tested for HIV, and anal swabs were taken for HPV testing. The results showed a high prevalence of anal HPV infection in both HIV-negative (75%) and HIV-positive (95%) MSM. Promiscuity and use of “poppers” (alkyl nitrites taken for recreational purposes through direct inhalation) were clearly associated with a higher prevalence of anal HPV infection. The four most common HPV genotypes were 6, 11, 16, and 18. The prevalence of anal HPV infection in Slovenian MSM is higher in comparison with other studies. Quadrivalent HPV vaccine could have great potential in this population.</jats:p>

Betapapillomaviruses in the anal canal of HIV positive and HIV negative men who have sex with men

“…In addition, "poppers" suppress the function of natural killer cells, which further increases susceptibility to infection [19]. In general, our findings are similar to what has previously been observed for anal ␣-PV infection by us and others (reviewed in [9]), indicating that ␤-PVs may also be transmitted sexually. This assumption is further supported by a recent HPV type distribution studies that identified a wide variety of ␤-PV types in male external genitalia [20,21], of which the majority was also detected in this study.…”

“…The study has been carried out in accordance with the code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) and has been approved by the National Medical Ethics Committee of the Republic of Slovenia (consent number: 131/06/07). Of 135 subjects, 123 originated from our previous study investigating the prevalence of ␣-PV in the anal region [9] and 12 were newly enrolled. The study subjects aged from 17 to 81 years (median age = 31 years) and 23/135 (17.0%) were HIV-1 positive.…”

“…M a /H a PCR amplicons were gelpurified and further processed for sequence analysis and HPV type determination, as described previously [11]. Detection and typing of ␣-PVs in anal swab samples of the newly included MSM was performed, as described previously [9].…”

Assessing Gammapapillomavirus infections of mucosal epithelia with two broad-spectrum PCR protocols

“…Samples of total DNA (n = 458), extracted from 249 swabs of the anal canal (226 initial and 23 follow-up samples), 94 cervical cancer formalin-fixed paraffinembedded (FFPE) tissue samples, 21 genital warts (11 swabs and 10 biopsies) from different anatomical sites [foreskin (n = 4), scrotum (n = 2), penile glans (n = 2), perianal area (n = 4) and pubis (n = 9)], and 94 oral swabs collected during routine paternity testing, were obtained from the archival collection of samples of the Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario (Rosario, Argentina) and the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana (Ljubljana, Slovenia). Before subsequent analyses, all samples were collected, processed, and stored at − 80°C, as described previously [11,27,[29][30][31][32]. The adequacy of samples for downstream analyses was determined by PCR amplification of the human beta-globin gene, as previously described [33].…”

“…Alpha-PV infections of the anal canal have frequently been detected in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1)-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) [5,6]. Moreover, HIV-1-positive MSM have approximately 60 times higher risk of developing anal cancer than the general population [7,8], and also show higher risk with respect to men who have sex with women (MSW) [9], women [10], and HIV-1-negative MSM [11], but in lower proportions.…”