Correlation of human papillomavirus types with clinical features of patients with condyloma acuminatum in China.

BACKGROUND: Condyloma acuminatum (CA)-related human papillomavirus (HPV) typing has focused on the prevalence of HPV types. The correlation between HPV types and the clinical features of CA has rarely been documented.

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between HPV types and the clinical features of CA.

METHODS: Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism was used to type HPV in the CA lesions from 80 Chinese patients with full clinical data.

RESULTS: We determined that HPV6 and HPV11 single infections were the most frequent and accounted for 38.7 and 36.3%, respectively. Multiple infections caused by HPV6, HPV11, HPV16, HPV18, and/or HPV31 accounted for the remaining 25%. We were the first to document the HPV11 and HPV31 co-infection in a patient with colon carcinoma infected anal CA in China. The statistical analysis demonstrated that multiple HPV infections predisposed an individual to more warts, larger warts, a longer disease course, and a greater frequency of recurrence. The cases infected with the high-risk type, HPV16, accounted for 60% of the multiple infections and had a higher relapse rate than any other type of HPV infection.

CONCLUSIONS: Compared with a single HPV type infection, multiple HPV infections in CA were related to a more severe disease and a worse prognosis. These data provide useful information for the treatment and prognosis of CA. Mapping the proportion of CA caused by the virus types pre-vaccination enables the prediction of the vaccination benefits regarding CA burden reduction.