Jennifer Margaret Roberts

Older women testing positive forHPV16/18 on cervical screening and risk of high‐grade cervical abnormality

AbstractIn Australia's HPV‐based cervical screening program, we previously showed that risk of histological high‐grade abnormality at 1 year post screening decreased with age in women with oncogenic HPV. In this study, we followed 878 HPV16/18 positive women aged 55 years and over for up to 3 years post screening test, to determine the proportion with histological high‐grade abnormality (HGA, incorporating high‐grade squamous intraepithelial abnormality (HSIL), adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma) and to correlate risk of HGA with liquid‐based cytology result and with prior screening history. HGA was detected in 7.8% at 1 year and 10.0% at 3 years, with no significant difference (P = .136), despite the number of women with follow‐up information significantly increasing from 82.9% to 91.0% (P < .0001). The proportion of HPV16/18 positive women with HGA at 3 years was highest in those with an HSIL cytology result (79.0%) and lowest in those with negative cytology (6.2%). Women with an adequate screening history had fewer HGA than such women with inadequate prior screening (6.6% vs 16.0%,P = .001) or with a history of an abnormality (6.6% vs 14.4%,P = .001). HPV16/18 infection in women over 55 years may have a different natural history from that in younger women, in whom HGA are more common after HPV16/18 detection. In HPV‐based cervical screening programs, management algorithms for screen‐detected abnormalities based on risk stratification should include factors such as age, screening history and index cytology result, so that women receive appropriate investigation and follow‐up.

Use of p53 immunohistochemistry can improve diagnostic agreement for differentiated vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia ( dVIN ): an international reproducibility study

Aims Differentiated or HPV‐independent vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (dVIN) can progress rapidly to invasive cancer and accurate pathological diagnosis is essential to facilitate appropriate interventions. Histological similarities of dVIN with non‐neoplastic lesions, however, often make the diagnosis less reproducible. We investigated among a diverse group of pathologists whether the diagnostic agreement improves with the use of p53 immunohistochemistry (IHC) interpreted using the pattern‐based schema. Methods and results Fifty haematoxylin–eosin (HE) stained archival slides (30 dVIN and 20 non‐dysplastic vulvar lesions) were selected and p53‐IHC was performed. Twenty‐four board‐certified pathologists from eight countries first assessed the HE slides alone, and after a washout period, re‐evaluated them alongside the p53‐IHC slides. During both rounds, slides were diagnosed as dVIN, favour dVIN, favour no‐VIN or no‐VIN. p53‐IHC was scored as wild‐type or mutant (diffuse, basal, cytoplasmic or null). Kappa ( κ ) statistics and McNemar's test were used for statistical analyses. Overall diagnostic agreement for dVIN saw a significant increase in the Kappa value ( κ  = 0.6 vs. κ  = 0.4, P  = 0.002) when HE and p53‐IHC slides were assessed together compared with histology assessment alone, although the level of agreement remained moderate. For p53‐IHC assessment, overall agreement was substantial ( κ  = 0.7). Diagnoses changing from no‐VIN/favour no‐VIN to dVIN correlated significantly with the identification of a p53‐mutant pattern ( P  < 0.001). Conclusions Our findings indicate that p53‐IHC is a robust ancillary tool that can be reproducibly interpreted by pathologists with varying experience levels and supports the routine use of p53‐IHC in cases where dVIN is considered in the differential diagnosis.