Article Text
Abstract
Background In a new era of Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, adequate diagnostics of the viral infection in men becomes more important: the monitoring of the vaccination effect requires evaluating whether vaccine HPV types disappear from and how the prevalence of non-vaccine types is affected in either high-risk groups or general population. Detection methods and anatomical sites for optimal HPV sampling are of high interest among healthcare specialists. Expressed prostate secretion (EPS) obtained during digital rectal examination—a daily routine urological diagnostic procedure—and following massage of the prostate, represents an alternative sampling material for the study of HPV ecology in the male. We present the results from the first study on HPV detection in EPS, as detected using a reference method used at the WHO HPV LabNet global reference laboratory, a multiplex high-throughput genotyping using the Luminex system.
Methods The EPS samples were from 186 heterosexual men (mean age 32 (range 19–60) years (median sexual life start at 17.6 (9–25) years; 33 (1–500) median life-time sex partners; no concurrent STDs at the time of the study) were collected in a urology outpatient unit in St. Petersburg and tested for the presence of HPV DNA in Stockholm by the Luminex assay.
Results The results are presented in the Abstract LBP-1.07 table 1. HPV prevalence in the study population was 25.3% for all HPV types with 11.8% for oncogenic types only. High-risk (HR−) HPV 16 and 66 were the most common types 3.7 and 2.7% of men, respectively. Interestingly, untypable HR-HPV types were found in 3.2% of EPS samples. Multiple oncogenic types were found in 22.7% of all HR-HPV+ EPS samples.
Conclusions EPS can be used for HPV studies in men: additional investigation of EPS may result in better understanding the transmission of HPV infection and to develop strategies for HPV prevention. For the first time, the full range of HPV types in the EPS of men with no STDs was explored.