Different Association of Human Papillomavirus 16 Variants with Early and Late Presentation of Cervical Cancer

The median age of cervical cancer (CC) presentation coincides with the mean age of menopause presentation (49 years) in Mexico. Here, we investigated the association between different HPV16 variants and early (≤ 49 years) or delayed (≥ 50 years) CC presentation. We conducted a case-case study that included 462 CCs, 386 squamous cell carcinomas (SCC), 63 adenocarcinomas (ACC), and 13 additional cell types. Variants were identified by PCR and DNA sequencing. The risk conferred by each variant for developing CC earlier than 50 years was analyzed using a univariate logistic regression model considering old-aged patients (≥ 50 years) and non-HPV16 cases as the reference variables. Overall, the frequency of HPV16 was 50.9%, and the only identified variants were the European A1/2 (31.2%) and the Asian-American D2 (10.8%), and D3 (8.9%). D2 was mainly associated with ≤ 49-year-old patients (15.9%); A1/2 was uniformly distributed between the two age groups (~31%), whereas D3 increased with age to a frequency of 11.8% in the older group. Only the D2 variant conferred a 3.3-fold increase in the risk of developing CC before 50 years of age (OR = 3.3, 95% CI = 1.7–6.6, p