Detection of human papillomavirus DNA, serum p53, and p53 antibodies in patients with cervical cancer.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) was detected in 85% and 63.6% of patients with invasive cervical cancer and minor cervical abnormalities, respectively. HPV-16 was the dominant type in both groups of women. Because of the high oncogenic potential of HPV-16 and the greater chance of its persistence, a follow-up of cases with minor cervical abnormalities harboring HPV-16 is warranted in order to observe the progression of the lesion. As many as 61.5% of the cases with invasive cervical cancer were found to have higher levels of serum p53 protein than did healthy controls. None of the patients had antibodies against the overexpressed p53. This suggests that, even if mutated, the p53 protein may not be immunogenic in all cases. An inverse relationship between the presence of HPV and the alteration in p53 expression was observed in 71.43% of the cases. This could mean the loss of p53 function as a result of either HPV-E6-mediated degradation or mutation in the p53 gene.