Increased age and mortality associated with cervical carcinomas negative for human papillomavirus RNA

Abstract Attempts to relate presence and type of human papillomavirus in cervical carcinoma with prognosis have yielded conflicting results. To further investigate this relation, the association between survival of cervical cancer patients after diagnosis and the presence of human papillomavirus (HPV) RNA within the tumour was assessed retrospectively. Formalin-fixed biopsy specimens from 212 patients with cervical carcinoma who had been followed for up to 6 years were tested by in-situ hybridisation with 125 I-labelled riboprobes. HPV-RNA-positive women were 11·9 years younger than HPV-negative women at diagnosis (p