The following is a summary of “Age-Specific Prevalence of Anal and Cervical Human Papillomavirus Infection and High-Grade Lesions in 11 177 Women by Human Immunodeficiency Virus Status: A Collaborative Pooled Analysis of 26 Studies,” published in February 2023 issue of Infectious Diseases by Wei, et al.

To develop strategies for preventing female anal cancer, it is important to have age-specific information on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in both the anal and cervical regions. For a study, researchers conducted a centralized reanalysis of data from 26 studies that reported HPV prevalence in paired anal and cervical samples based on age and HIV status. For women with HIV (WWH) and anal high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or worse (HSIL+), they also examined cervical cytopathology.

In HIV-negative women, the prevalence of HPV16 decreased significantly with age, both in the anus (from 4.3% at ages 15-24 years to 1.0% at age ≥55 years; P_trend = 0.0026) and cervix (from 7.4% to 1.7%; P <0.0001). Among women with HIV, HPV16 prevalence decreased with age in the cervix (from 18.3% to 7.2%; P_trend = 0.0035) but not in the anus (from 11.5% to 13.9%; P_trend = 0.5412). When anal HPV16 was present, concurrent cervical HPV16 also decreased with age in both HIV-negative women (P_trend = 0.0005) and women with HIV (P_trend = 0.0166). Of the 48 women with HIV who had HPV16-positive anal high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or worse, 27 (56%) were cervical high-risk HPV-positive, including 8 with cervical HPV16, and 5 were cervical high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions or worse.

The findings indicated that HPV16 infections in the anus persisted longer or occur later in life compared to the cervix, particularly in women with HIV. This should be considered when assessing the usefulness of cervical screening results for predicting the risk of anal cancer.

Reference: academic.oup.com/jid/article-abstract/227/4/488/6553063?redirectedFrom=fulltext