Low initial human papillomavirus viral load may indicate worse prognosis in patients with cervical carcinoma treated with surgery

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prognostic implication of human papillomavirus (HPV) viral load in cervical cancer patients who underwent radical hysterectomy. METHODS We conducted a retrospective review of patients with stage IA2 through stage IIIA cervical carcinoma who underwent radical hysterectomy at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between January 2005 and December 2009. Patients who had undergone preoperative hybrid capture 2 testing to detect HPV DNA were included. A total of 346 patients positive for HPV DNA were enrolled and stratified into two groups according to the median HPV viral load. RESULTS HPV viral load was significantly correlated with lymphovascular space invasion (p=0.026) and deep stromal invasion (p=0.024). However, other factors, such as age, stage, histologic grade, histologic type, lymph node metastasis, and tumor size, were not significantly associated with viral load. Low HPV viral load was correlated with poor disease-free survival in univariate analysis (p=0.037) and multivariate analysis (p=0.027). There was no significant difference in overall survival with regard to initial HPV viral load. CONCLUSION Low initial HPV viral load may be a poor prognostic factor for cervical cancer patients who have undergone radical hysterectomy.