Detection of HPV-16 in Cervical Swab in Woman with Recurrent PregnancyLoss by Real-Time PCR

Human Papilloma Virus is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. It causes a series of neoplasms, including cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile, anal, and head-and-neck cancers. The current study aimed to determine the role of human papillomavirus and its relationship to the incidence of recurrent miscarriages. A cross-sectional hospital-based study was carried out in Kirkuk City on 114 women who had recurrent miscarriages and included 36 women with previous two or more normal pregnancies as controls. Deep vaginal swabs were collected from all women enrolled in the study according to the standard procedure of vaginal swab sampling until PCR extraction and amplification tests were done by realtime PCR for qualitative and quantitative. The study showed that 10.53% (12 of 114) of RPL patients tested positive by PCR, while none of the control patients had PCR +ve results. The mean HPV DNA load detected by RT-PCR from the RPL group (n=12) was 10.95 copies/cell (range 7.665–15.75 copies/cell). Furthermore, it demonstrated that the high mean of HPV DNA load (13.724 copies/cell) was recorded among RPL with a number of abortions (5 and more). It was concluded that human papillomavirus is highly related to recurrent abortion. Keywords: RPL; HPV DNA; E6 protein; RT-PCR