ABSTRACT
The clinical course of condylomas of the cervix, and more generally of all cervical dysplasias whether associated with koilocytosis or not, remains unpredictable. Based on a series of earlier publications, we undertook a routine typing for human papillomaviruses in intraepithelial malpighian lesions of the cervix. We examined the real usefulness of such typing to determine prognosis of the lesions and correct clinical management. We determined the correlations between human papillomaviruses, as detected by the in situ hybridization method, with the histological grade of 125 cervical lesions (in 106 patients) and the clinical course (mean follow-up = 24 months) in 56% of them. Viruses 16/18 and/or 31/33/55, considered to be potential oncogenes, predominated, whatever the grade, in in situ hybridization positive intraepithelial malpighian lesions (57 out of 59 cases; 97%). In the follow-up cases, there was no difference in the clinical course of the lesions in terms of grade (simple condyloma mild or moderate dysplasia) based on the hybridization results (detection and typing). These findings suggest that routine viral typing cannot be proposed to determine the therapeutic attitude (abstention, destruction) for the management of intraepithelial lesions of the cervix.
