Association of human papillomavirus with other coinfections prevailing in abnormal cervical lesions

Purpose: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common and necessary cause for cervical cancer development. However, association of other microbial infections such as bacterial vaginosis (BV), trichomonas vaginalis (TV), and hepatitis B virus (HBV) with HPV in development of the disease is not clear. This study aimed to evaluate the association of HPV with the other coinfections with the development of cervical lesions. Materials and Methods: Cervical smears of 120 women (age range 20–70 years) were screened by cytology/serology for detection of BV, TV, and HBV. The prevalence of HPV and its copy number were detected by polymerase chain reaction-based methods. Results: HPV infection was infrequent (4%) in normal cytology samples followed by increase in atypical squamous cell of undetermined significance (ASCUS) (60.4%), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) (94.1%), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) (100.0%), and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (100.0%). HPV 16 infection was prevalent than HPV 18 along their coinfections in some samples. The other microbial infections were comparatively less frequent (28.0%) in normal cytology samples than ASCUS (83.3%), LSIL (44.1%), HSIL (58.3%), and SCC (100.0%). BV infection was found in normal cytology as well as in ASCUS, LSIL, and HSIL samples, whereas TV infection was absent in normal cytology though prevalent in other cervical lesions. HBV infection was seen in only one ASCUS sample. Conclusions: Significant high HPV 16 copy number was seen to be associated with other microbial infections than the infection negative samples. Coinfection of HPV with other microbes has association with severity of cervical lesions.