Detection of 14 human papillomavirus genotypes in cervical samples in women from a central-southern area of Italy showing different Pap test results.

We evaluated the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and correlated the molecular test results with the cytological examination data (PAP test) in 364 women living in central-southern Italy (Molise region), by means of polymerase chain reaction HPV DNA genotyping and of cervical cytology. One hundred and twenty-eight women resulted HPV positive (35.2%), HPV16 being the most frequent genotype. HPV positive women were significantly younger than negative patients (35.9 +/- 8.4 years and 38.2 +/- 9.1, respectively; p = 0.018); women with multiple infections were also significantly younger than those with single infection (31.7 +/- 6.9 and 37.6 +/- 8.3, respectively; p = 0.0002). Moreover, high risk HPV positive patients were significantly younger than low risk HPV positive women (35.1 +/- 7.7 and 40.5 +/- 10.5, respectively; p = 0.008). In the HPV positive group, 14 patients (10.9%) did not show any significant cytological alteration. Conversely, 7 out of 236 HPV negative women (3.0%) showed high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL). Furthermore, HPV 16 or 18 were present in more than 70% of women positive for HSIL at cytology. Our data suggest the potential effectiveness of combined cytology and molecular test for further study of clinical cases with apparently laboratory conflicting results.

Reliability and correlation study of a new homocysteine assay.

BACKGROUND: Hyperhomocysteinemia is a risk factor for cardiovascular, cerebrovascular diseases and is also associated with congenital birth defects, pregnancy complications and cancer. Many homocysteine assays have been developed since the 1960s and most companies have commercially available kits for homocysteine determination. In this paper, we report the performance characteristics of the new Architect homocysteine assay and the correlation with HPLC and other routine analytical methods. METHODS: Recovery, limit of detection (LOD), total imprecision and interferences were evaluated; furthermore, the method was compared with HPLC and with two routine methods. RESULTS: Recovery was higher than 95%, LOD was lower than 1.0 micromol/L, the range for total imprecision was 1.7%-3.8%. No significant degree of interference was observed up to 5 g/L hemoglobin, 20 mg/dL (342.5 micromol/L) bilirubin and 60 g/L lipids. For the comparison study, this new method shows a lightly positive bias with HPLC (mean+/-SD: 0.03+/-1.7 micromol/L) with R(2)=0.96, a positive bias with the immunonephelometric method (mean+/-SD: 1.7+/-1.2 micromol/L) with R(2)=0.98, and a negative bias with the enzymatic method (mean+/-SD: -1.8+/-2.2 micromol/L) with R(2)=0.94. CONCLUSIONS: This new method from Abbott can be included among the methods suitable for homocysteine routine analysis.