The accuracy of histopathologic examination compared with polymerase chain reaction to diagnose human papillomavirus infection in the uterine cervix

Introduction: Until today cancer is still the main health problem besides infectious disease in Indonesia and other developing countries. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer, where early detection of high-risk Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection as the causative agent is very important so that the cervical lesions do not develop into pre-cancerous lesions and cancer. Even though, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is still not possible to be used as a screening method in the wider community, because the cost is quite expensive. An easier, cheaper, and simpler method of examination is needed to detect earlier infection, with the accuracy close to gold standard examination. This study aims to determine the accuracy of histopathologic examination compared with PCR to diagnose HPV infection in the uterine cervix. Methods: This is a cross-sectional diagnostic test, with predictor variable is conventional histopathology examination, and outcome variable is PCR examination. The samples in this study were tissue biopsy, or surgery samples of patients clinically diagnosed with cervical lesion. A 2×2 table was created to calculate the sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV). Result: A total of 39 samples were observed in this study. The sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were 72.73%, 58.82%, 69.57% and 62.50%, respectively. Conclusion: This study found the accuracy of histopathologic examination compared with PCR to diagnose HPV infection in the uterine cervix is more than 50%.