Study of infection by human papillomavirus in severe dysplasias and carcinomas in situ of the uterine cervix using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization.

Diagnosis of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in uterine cervical lesions is usually based on histopathological criteria and, in some cases, is confirmed by immunohistochemistry. The recent development of in situ hybridization techniques has facilitated the detection of HPV in these lesions. Consequently, we carried out a study on 18 uterine cervical biopsy specimens histopathologically diagnosed as severe dysplasias and carcinomas in situ, using an immunohistochemical method with a rabbit polyclonal antibody against the HPV common structural antigen and in situ hybridization techniques with three biotinylated DNA probes for HPV types 6/11, 16/18, and 31/35/51. By immunohistochemistry only one case (5.5%) proved to be positive, whereas by in situ hybridization 12 HPV-positive cases were obtained (66.6%), of which 7 were positive for HPV types 16/18 (38.8%) and 6 for HPV types 31/35/51 (33.3%). One case was positive with positive with both DNA probes. From our results it can be inferred that in situ hybridization is a more sensitive technique than immunohistochemistry for confirming the presence of HPV in severe dysplasias and carcinomas in situ of the uterine cervix. Furthermore, in situ hybridization provides much more information than immunohistochemistry since it permits the identification of the HPV types causing the lesion.