Antibodies to herpesvirus type 2 in carcinoma of the cervix uteri in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Carcinoma of the cervix is by far the commonest gynecologic malignancy seen in Ibadan, Nigeria. In a study aimed at investigating the role of herpesvirus type 2 (HT-2) in its pathogenesis, antibodies to HT-2 were detected by immunofluorescence above a titer of 640 in 31 (70.5 percent) of 44 women with invasive carcinoma of the cervix as compared with five (11.1 percent) of 45 healthy women of the same age group. Analysis according to histologic types of growths showed that 31 (83.8 percent) of 37 cases of squamous-cell carcinoma had antibodies above a titer of 640, whereas none of the other types (one adenocarcinoma and six undifferentiated carcinoma of the cervix) had antibodies above this titer. It was concluded that the results of the present study support the hypothesis of an association between HT-2 and carcinoma of the cervix, most especially the squamous-cell type.