Serum antibody responses against human papillomavirus in relation to tumor characteristics, response to treatment, and survival in carcinoma of the uterine cervix.

To investigate whether the serum antibody responses to human papillomavirus (HPV) in cervical carcinoma were related to the clinical and histopathological features of the tumors and how the antibody responses were affected by treatment, pretreatment serum samples from 66 patients with carcinoma of the cervix were studied for the presence of IgA or IgG responses against six defined HPV epitopes. Posttreatment serum samples were drawn from the same patients 2-24 months after initiation of treatment. There was no significant correlation between pretreatment level of any of the investigated antibodies and clinical stage or differentiation of tumor. For the IgA responses to the epitopes 245:16 and 245:18 in the E2 protein there was a significant correlation between an increased pretreatment antibody level and a shortened survival. A high pretreatment value of IgA against 245:16 was also associated with the absence of any complete response after therapy. The antibody levels declined dramatically after therapy for most of the antigens studied. However, this decline was seen both among the 53 patients with complete remission and among the 13 patients with remaining or progressive disease. Thus, the investigated serological responses were not useful as tumor markers, since patients with progressive, late-stage disease may fail to mount an antibody response to these proteins. However, pretreatment levels of the serological responses to the HPV epitopes 245:16 and 245:18 were associated with prognosis in cervical cancer.