Background.

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence, genotype, and distribution of cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) in women living in southeast Turkey.

Materials and methods.

A total of 13,300 cervical smear materials were scanned and 899 cases found to be HPV-positive were included in the study. Cases were divided into seven groups according to age (under 19 years of age, 20-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and over 60 years old) and six groups according to HPV types (HPV type 16, HPV type 18, HPV type 16-18 association, HPV type 16-high risk (HR) association, HPV Type 18-HR association, and HPV HR [31,33,35,39,45, 51,52,56,58,59,66, and 68]). SurePath liquid-based cytology preparations were evaluated, and HPV tests were performed using real-time-polymerase chain reaction.

Results.

A total of 6.7% of cervical smear samples were positive for HPV DNA. The mean age of these cases was 41 years (range 15-78 years). All HPV types showed the highest rate of positivity in the 30-39 age groups. Regarding the distribution of HPV types, most of the cases were in the HPV HR group (66%). The most common atypia category detected in cytological examination was "Atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance" (ASC-US) (27%).

Conclusions.

It was determined that the prevalence of HPV in the southeast of Turkey is lower than the world average, the most common HPV type in our region is HPV-HR, and HPV peaks at older ages compared to what has been reported for other regions of the world.

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