Different amplification patterns of 3q26 and 5p15 regions in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and cervical cancer.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate and correlate the amplification of chromosomal regions 3q26 and 5p15 in different cytological and histological subgroups of patients and to compare the sensitivity and specificity of amplification tests with cytology, colposcopy and HPV status.

METHODS: The work was conducted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in cooperation with the Institute of Pathological Anatomy, JFM CU in Martin and UNM during years 2013-2016. Prospective longitudinal study included 131 patients. We focused on the FISH diagnosis of the amplification of regions encoding the components of telomerase enzyme (3q26, 5p15) in cytology specimens. We manually evaluated 100 atypical cells per slide and analysed the amplification patterns. Correlations between cytological, histological, HPV DNA results and amplification patterns of chromosomal regions 3q26 and 5p15 were analysed by chi-squared test and non-parametric Man - Whitney U test.

RESULTS: The results showed that the amplification of chromosomal regions increases with the degree of dysplasia toward the invasive disease (p < 0.001). Whereas the increase in the amplification of 3q26 is noticeable already at CIN 2 + lesions (p < 0.01), 5p15 amplification is shifted up toward CIN 3/CIS (p < 0.001) and cervical cancer. Amplification of selected regions correlated with each other and also with hrHPV-positive status (p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION: The analysis of the amplification of 3q26 and 5p15 regions may serve in the future for the differential diagnosis of cervical lesions and to determine their malignant potential. High specificity of these tests can improve the excellent sensitivity of HPV DNA test.