distribution of human papillomavirus genotypes in suspected women cytological specimens from tehran, iran

background and objectives: the human papillomavirus (hpv) is associated with more than 70% of the cervical neoplasm. the current study aims to evaluate the distribution of hpv genotypes in suspected women cytological specimens from teh- ran, iran. materials and methods: in the current cross-sectional study, hpv genotype prevalence was investigated in 433 subject women. dna extraction was performed by high pure viral nucleic acid kit. a semi-automatically hybrispot 24™ (hs24) setting was used for hpv typing and data interpreted by hybrisoft™ software according to instructions. results: pathologic data showed 181 (41.8%) had non-malignant lesions, 212 (49%) had inflammation and 40 (9.2%) reported lsil in primary pap-smear result. hpv was found in 143 (33%) specimens and the most comment high-risk and low-risk hpv types were hpv-16 and -6, respectively. also, 62 (43%) were co-infected with multiple genotypes includes, 34 (24%) cases had co-infection with two hpv types, 17 (12%) cases had co-infection with three hpv types, 6 (4%) cases had co-infection with four hpv types and 5 (3%) cases had co-infection with five hpv types. there was statistically different domination on high-risk genotype in most of the co-infected samples (p 0.01). conclusion: current study indicates that the lesion pathology assessment was significantly associated with the hpv infec- tion (p 0.01). furthermore, the age group assessment shows that most of the hpv positive cases were 21 to 40 (p 0.01). the hpv infection prevalence in the current study was 33% and the most frequently reported high-risk and low-risk hpv types were 16 and 6, respectively.