Comparison of the performance of carcinogenic HPV typing of the Roche Linear Array and Qiagen LiquiChip® HPV assays

BACKGROUND Cervical cancer is caused by high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV). DNA testing of such high-risk types of HPV could improve cervical screening.The aim of the study was to compare the sensitivities and positive predictive values of two commercially available typing assays (Qiagen LQ and Roche LA) and to comparatively assess the distribution of HPV types with these two assays. METHODS The study population comprised 311 ASCUS + women with abnormal pap tests who were HCII positive and who were admitted to three European referral gynecology clinics between 2007 and 2010 (Madrid, Marseille and Milan). All patients underwent LQ and LA tests. RESULTS The sensitivity of the two assays for HPV typing was 94% for LQ and 99% for LA (compared with HCII). The overall concordance between LQ and LA was 93%. The three prevalent genotypes, HPV16, HPV18, and HPV31, were identified with a high concordance using the two assays: kappa 0.93, 0.83, and 0.91, respectively. Mixed genotypes were more frequently detected by LA than by LQ: 52% vs. 18%, respectively (p < .0001). CONCLUSIONS These assays have a good clinical sensitivity for detecting HPV types in CIN2+ patients and allow the virus type to be detected in the same experiment. Our study revealed no significant difference between LQ and LA for CIN2+ or CIN3+ diagnosis, indicating similar distributions of HPV types and a mixed genotype detection that is higher for LA than for LQ.