Human papillomavirus infection among sexual partners attending a Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

Cervical cancer is a major source of illness and death among women worldwide and genital infection with oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) its principal cause. There is evidence of the influence of the male factor in the development of cervical neoplasia. Nevertheless, the pathogenic processes of HPV in men are still poorly understood. It has been observed that different HPV types can be found among couples. The objective of the present study was to investigate HPV infections in female patients (n = 60 females/group) as well as in their sexual partners and to identify the concordance of HPV genotypes among them. By using the polymerase chain reaction, we detected a 95% prevalence of HPV DNA in women with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) compared to 18.3% in women with normal cervical epithelium, with a statistically significant difference (P < 0.001). The HPV DNA prevalence was 50% in male partners of women with CIN and 16.6% in partners of healthy women. In the control group (healthy women), only 9 couples were simultaneously infected with HPV, and only 22.2% of them had the same virus type, showing a weak agreement rate (kappa index = 0.2). Finally, we observed that HPV DNA was present in both partners in 30 couples if the women had CIN, and among them, 53.3% shared the same HPV type, showing moderate agreement, with a kappa index of 0.5. This finding supports the idea of circulation and recirculation of HPV among couples, perpetuating HPV in the sexually active population, rather than true recurrences of latent infections.

Diagnosis and Prevalence of High-Risk Human Papillomavirus Infection in Heterosexual Men

“…Number of types tested for varies between articles. In studies reporting prevalence estimates for more than one HPV type, the commonest detected types were HPV16 [20,24,26,27,36,37] and HPV18 [27].…”

“…HPV concordance in heterosexual couples has important clinical and public health implications. In terms of HR-HPV detection, the percentage of couples harboring HR-HPV was 32-65% [28,36,37,41]. In couples where both members were HPV positive, more than 60% were infected with one or more of the same HPV types.…”

The main predictors of human papillomavirus infection in couples

“…Это приводит к потенциаль-но большому числу бессимптомных носителей, кото-рые служат резервуаром и переносчиком вируса [3,4,6]. В результате обнаружение ВПЧ онкогенных типов становится проблемой не только инфицированных пациентов, но начинает представлять угрозу и для их сексуальных партнеров [4,9,10].…”

“…В общей сложности 28, 44 и 62% испытуемых женщин име-ли инфекцию, вызванную высокоонкогенными ти-пами ВПЧ, в течение 12, 24 и 48 мес соответственно, а первые проявления ЦИН среди сексуально актив-ных женщин определялись уже через 6 мес [11]. До-казательства влияния мужского фактора и в разви-тии цервикальной неоплазии, в том числе рака шей-ки матки, приводят и другие авторы [1,2,9].…”

“…Таким образом, изучение течения ПВИ и свя-занных с ней процессов канцерогенеза актуально не только для женщин, но и для мужчин [2,9]. Так, G. Scaglione и соавт.…”