Investigação das alterações da subpopulação lifocitária no sangue periférico em mulheres com papilomavírus humano de alto risco oncogênico

Abstract

Cervical cancer is a problem of great social relevance, since it is the second most common gynecological malignancy in the world. The main precursor of cervical cancer is human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Despite the great advances in the biology of HPV, little is known about the immune response to this virus. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is associated with cervical carcinogenesis through epidemiological and laboratory evidence. HPV infections occur in women all over the world. The search for potential prognostic markers, aiming at understanding the progression of intraepithelial lesions is of paramount importance. It is believed that immunoregulatory, immunogenic and cell cycle proteins are closely involved in the process of carcinogenesis. For this reason, the early detection of this type of infection is of great importance. Considering the above, the initial proposal of the project was to evaluate the systemic immune profile of patients with HPV virus. Initially, oncotic cytology tests were performed to screen patients who were carriers of HPV viruses, followed by the hybrid capture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to typify the virus, subsequently the immunophenotyping of these patients to evaluate the immunological profile, quantifying the lymphocytes (CD4, CD8, NK and NKT cells). It was evidenced a relative increase of the CD8 + T lymphocytes in patients with high oncogenic HPV and an expressive decrease of the NK and NKT cells, independent of HPV oncogenicity. Our study is registered in the ethics and research committee of the university hospital Onofre Lopes (CEP-HUOL), number 097/07. Subsequently, we performed a systematic review of the immunohistochemical expression of p16, ki67 and p53 in patients with cervical lesions, obtaining as a result a greater expression of these markers according to the severity of the lesions, being able to be considered valuable biomarkers to discriminate the stages of progressive cervical lesions.