B-353 High risk HPV genotypes prevalence in Mexico
Authors: Garcia Gil A , Lopez Luciano J J , Beltran Espinoza J A , Delgado Solis D G , Meza Gonzalez J , Osnaya Hernandez F , Payan Benitez J R , Solis Gonzalez C J , Moreno Camacho J L 
Published: October 2024

Background

The greatest risk factor for the development of cervical cancer is infection by human papillomavirus (HPV). To date, more than 200 genotypes have been described, 14 of them considered by the WHO as high risk genotypes (HR) due to their high oncogenic capacity, with special attention given to genotypes 16 and 18. In Mexico, cervical cancer is the third cause of cancer-associated death in women, therefore, the timely detection of HR genotypes in women becomes imperative for the reduction of the burden of this disease. The detection of high-risk HPV genotypes through the PCR molecular test is part of primary cervical cancer screening, however, this practice is not common in Mexico. Here, we analyzed the results of HPV genotyping studies in women attending cervical cancer screening studies at Salud Digna with the objective of determining the prevalence and dsitribution of HR-HPV in Mexico.

Methods

Retrospective analysis of the results obtained for the detection of HPV in cervical samples from patients who were attended at Salud Digna clinics from june to august 2023. The samples were processed by automated RT-PCR (ROCHE COBAS PRIME-Cobas 6800). The kit used was the COBASHPV which detects the 14 HR genotypes and generates 4 types of results: negative, positive for HPV16, positive for HPV18 and positive for POOL (which includes the remaining 12 genotypes). For the analysis, Mexico was divided into 7 regions which share sociocultural factors (Northwest, North, West, Center, Gulf, South, Southeast).

Results

The study population was 95,934 patients (mean age of 41y). At the national level, 18.93% (18,159) of patients are positive for HPV POOL, 3.54% (3,399) for HPV 16 and 1.78% (1709) for HPV 18. The regions with the highest positivity are the southeast region for HPV POOL (22.32%), the south region for HPV 16 (3.77%) and HPV 18 (2.44%) while the region with the lowest percentage is the Northwest region (HPV POOL 17.86%, HPV16 3.39%, HPV18 1.57%). The age range with the highest percentage of positivity is 14-29y for HPV POOL, 30-39y for HPV 16, and 30-39y for HPV 18.

Conclusions

We found that Mexican patients are becoming infected at an early age with the genotypes that are part of the pool, however, we observe a marked trend towards a decrease in cases as the age of the population advances.The regions of the country with a higher percentage of HPV positive patients are the south and the southeast, regions that also concentrate most of the extreme poverty in Mexico. These numbers should be taken with caution given that in absolute values these are also are the regions of the country where the least people go for a cervical cancer screening study, emphasizing the need to promote these studies in these regions. In the case of genotypes with a greater oncogenic capacity, both HPV16 and HPV18 show a greater prevalence in economically productive age ranges. Retrospective studies like provide information that allow governments to generate public policies focused on the most affected regions.