Identificación de la proteína p16 como biomarcador de cáncer cérvico-uterino en muestras de cepillado cervical obtenidas por citología convencional y por autotoma

Abstract

Cervical cancer is the result of infection by the human papillomavirus (HPV) and is considered to be one of the leading causes of death in women worldwide. Traditional tests for HPV detection are very time consuming, so the determination of proteins present in the cervical epithelium at the stage of infection has now been implemented. The p16 and Ki-67 proteins are considered promising biomarkers of high specificity which, together with the autotome method, can guarantee a higher percentage of women with early diagnosis. In this study, 240 cervical samples were analyzed using the ELISA detection method, the samples were obtained from 120 female patients, whose age ranged from 18 to 70 years, two samples were collected per patient, obtained by the conventional method and by vaginal autotomy. The p16 protein calibration curves were standardized in two media, and the samples obtained by the two methods were analyzed. The threshold limit was established by the At most one change (AMOC) statistical test with Changepoint, by which it was possible to detect elevated levels of p16 protein. The behavior of the samples was analyzed using histogram plots and the U-Mann-Whitney statistic. Finally, it was identified that p16 protein is a possible early biomarker of cervical cancer and can be detected by ELISA. It was possible to identify the protein in both the samples obtained by cytology and those obtained by autotomy. The study was carried out during the months of July-December 2022 at the University of Cuenca.