Subtypes analysis of human papilloma virus infection in 1 359 male patients and analysis of differences in male and female infection

  Background  Male human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is one of the risk factors of male reproductive disease, which has drawn attention from clinical workers for male HPV infection.

  Objective  To investigate the subtypes analysis of human papilloma virus infection in 1359 males, and analyze the prevalence of different genders.

  Methods  From January 2017 to September 2019, 1 359 scrape samples of male external genitalia were collected from dermatology outpatient department of Peking University Third Hospital. Totally 15 high-risk HPV subtypes and 1 low-risk HPV subtype were analyzed. The HPV distribution of male patients were further compared with HPV distribution of 858 female external genitalia and 5 869 cervical secretions respectively. The male patients’ age ranged from 18 to 70 years and the female patients were from 18 to 68 years.

  Results  The positive rate of HPV6/11 was 38.5% in 1 359 males, which was the highest in all the HPV subtypes. The infection rate was distinct between male external genitalia group and female external genitalia group for HPV subtype of HPV6/11, 52, 45 and 33 (P＜0.05). The detection rate of HPV6/11 and 45 in male external genitalia group was higher than those in female, while HPV33 and 52 were lower than those in female. The infection rate of the subtypes was significantly higher among male (P＜0.05), except HPV33 and 52. The top four subtypes were HPV 16, 51, 52 and 58, both in male and female group. Among the multiple high-risk HPV infections of external genitalia groups, only the dual subtype infection rate was lower in men than that in women (P＜0.05), and the remaining multiple infections constituted no statistical difference. However, compared with the female cervical group, the infection rate of low-risk infection and multiple risk mixed infection HPV in male external genitalia group was higher than those of female cervical group (P＜0.05). The HPV positive rate was higher in age ≥51 years group of male patients than that in cases with age 31-40 years (P＜0.05).

  Conclusion  The positive rate of high-risk HPV in male external genitalia is similar to that of female external genitalia, but higher than that of female cervical. Therefore, it is necessary to screen high-risk HPV in males.