REBA HPV‐ID® for efficient genotyping of human papillomavirus in clinical samples from Korean patients

This study was conducted to evaluate the overall performance of a reverse blot hybridization‐based assay, REBA HPV‐ID® (Molecules and Diagnostics, Wonju, Korea) for genotyping human papillomaviruses (HPV). HPV Genotyping on 356 specimens examined cytologically was performed using the REBA HPV‐ID®, and its results were compared with those obtained using the MyHPV DNA Chip® (Mygene, Seoul, Korea), DNA chip‐based HPV genotyping assay. The results from this study showed that the positivity rate of the REBA HPV‐ID® for abnormal cytological samples was higher (80.9%) than that of the MyHPV DNA chip (69.8%). In addition, the REBA HPV‐ID® positivity rate with normal cytological samples was higher (64.4%) than that obtained using DNA chips (34.4%). Subsequently, sequence analysis was performed with specimens that generated conflicting test results. Sequence analysis confirmed that the specimens which were positive by REBA HPV‐ID® did indeed contain HPV sequences. The results of this study suggest that the REBA HPV‐ID® is a sensitive test for genotyping HPV of clinical specimens. J. Med. Virol. 84: 1248–1253, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.