Epidemiological and molecular studies have implicated the human papilloma virus (HPV) as the main risk factor for the development of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and cervical cancer. Currently, 45 HPV types are known to infect the genital tract, of which at least 10 are associated with cancer. For many new and rare HPV types the oncogenic potential is still unknown, due to the limited number of reports concerning their association with particular dysplastic and neoplastic lesions.

Here, we present the prevalence, association with cytological and histological cervical lesions and sequence variations of a variant of HPV 66 among Macedonian woman. Fifteen women or ~7.9% of the 190 HPV positive women in whom the HPV type was determined, were infected with the HPV 66 variant. Thus, this variant is the third most common type, after HPV 16 (~28.4%), and HPV 31 (12.1%), among Macedonian women. The DNA sequence analysis of the L1 region showed less than 2% difference from the published HPV 66 sequence, thus confirming that this virus is a variant of HPV type 66. 

The results from the cytological and/or histological analyses showed that the HPV 66 was present in two women with normal cervical findings, one with non-specific chronic cervical inflammation, seven with low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) and five with high-grade SIL.

In conclusion, a variant of HPV 66 is a relatively com­mon intermediate risk HPV type among Macedonian women with cervical abnormalities.

Key words: human papilloma virus (HPV), HPV 66 variant, cervical lesions, squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL)