Relationship between prevalent oral and cervical human papillomavirus infections in human immunodeficiency virus-positive and -negative women

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is an etiologic agent for both oropharyngeal and cervical cancers, yet little is known about the interrelationship between oral and cervical HPV infections. Therefore, we compared the prevalences and type distributions of oral and cervical HPV infections and evaluated infection concordance in a cross-sectional study within the Women's Interagency HIV Study cohort. Oral rinse and cervical-vaginal lavage samples were concurrently collected from a convenience sample of 172 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive and 86 HIV-negative women. HPV genomic DNA was detected by PGMY09/11 L1 consensus primer PCR and type specified by reverse line blot hybridization for 37 HPV types and beta-globin. Only 26 of the 35 HPV types found to infect the cervix were also found within the oral cavity, and the, type distribution for oral HPV infections appeared distinct from that for cervical infections (P < 0.001). Oral HPV infections were less common than cervical infections for both HIV-positive (25.2% versus 76.9%, P < 0.001) and HIV-negative (9.0% versus 44.9%, P < 0.001) women. Oral HPV infections were more common among women with a cervical HPV infection than those without a cervical HPV infection (25.5% versus 7.9%, P = 0.002). The majority of women (207; 93.7%) did not have simultaneous oral and cervical infections by the same HPV type; however, the number of women who did (14; 6.3%) was significantly greater than would be expected by chance (P = 0.0002). Therefore, the oral and cervical reservoirs for HPV infection are likely not entirely independent of one another.