Aotea wins contract for Human Papillomavirus genotyping project

(Aotea News, December 2009)

Dr Collette Bromhead
Head of Department, Molecular Biology

Although four out of five people will have a Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection at some time in their lives, generally sexually transmitted, little is known about the prevalence in New Zealand of the morethan-100 strains of HPV.

Aotea Pathology is set to help change that, having recently secured a contract to perform HPV genotyping for an important nationwide HPV prevalence study.

The HPV strain a person is infected with is important because some types cause cell changes that can lead to cancer while others only cause warts.

The New Zealand National Cervical Screening Programme and Cancer Council, New South Wales study will measure the prevalence and distribution of different types of HPV in 600 New Zealand women with previous abnormal smears (high-grade lesions).

This important baseline measure will inform future policy decisions for both the HPV vaccination programme and the NZ cervical screening programme.

The awarding of the contract to Aotea Pathology builds on our reputation for high quality and innovative laboratory services, and we are pleased to be associated with clinical research that has significance for all New Zealand women.

Our Molecular Biology department will perform HPV genotyping using the Roche Linear Array test. This test uses DNA extracted from standard SurePath cervical smears, followed by PCR amplification and molecular typing of 37 different HPV types that cause warts and cervical cancer.

After HPV testing, each patient‘s sample will go to our Cytology department for a standard smear test. The number and type of HPV infections in each sample will be correlated to the grade of abnormality on Cytology.

In overseas studies, HPV types 16 and 18 are the most common in cervical cancer and precursor lesions, while types 6 and 11 are most commonly seen in warts.

The Gardasil HPV vaccine recently introduced to New Zealand protects against these four HPV types. Given our diverse population, it will be interesting to see if these HPV types are similarly important for all groups of New Zealand women.