Zacharie Sando^1,, Tomas McKee², Jean Claude Pache², Herman Kemajou¹, Olive Folem¹, Laura Rubbia – Brandt², Anderson Sama Doh¹

The objectives of this study were to detect and determine the different genotypes of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) found in high-grade squamous preinvasive lesions of the uterine cervix of Cameroonian women. HPV genotyping was conducted on 37 endocervical secretions of women with high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. HPV was found in 31 of the 37 women (83.8%); 9 different HPV genotypes were identified. The genotypes with high oncogenic potential were found in decreasing order of frequency as follows: 16, 18, 45, 33, 35 and 68. The frequency of strains found per patient ranged from 1 to 3. Genotypes 16 and 18 were single in 17 out of 31 patients. They were associated with other HPV genotypes in 4 out of 31 patients. In this study genotypes 16 and 18 are the most frequent genotypes encountered in high grade squamous preinvasive cervical lesions in Yaounde. This finding, if confirmed on a larger sample, portrays the potential effectiveness of HPV vaccines in the Cameroonian population as a preventive measure against cervical cancer. However, the position of genotype 45 is not negligible and should be confirmed on a large sample.

human papillomavirus, high grade preinvasive lesion, cervix