Detection and typing of human papillomavirus infection of the uterine cervix by dot blot hybridisation: comparison of scrapes and biopsies.

Paired scrapes and biopsies from 100 women attending a routine colposcopy clinic were examined by dot blot DNA hybridisation for infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6/11, 16, 18, and 31; 51% of the scrapes and 50% of the biopsies were positive for HPV infection. Scrapes detected more HPV 18 (10% vs. 2%, P = less than 0.05) and HPV 31 (7% vs. 3%, not significant) than did the biopsies, but biopsies detected more HPV 16 (42% vs. 33%, not significant). Comparison of the results for each patient revealed that the correlation between scrapes and biopsies was not very close: only 34 patients were HPV-positive by both sampling methods, whereas 67 were positive if the results were combined. This report discusses the implications of these findings.