Objectives Israel is traditionally considered to have the lowest prevalence of cervical cancer compared with that in other countries of the Western world. The aim of the present study was to establish the human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes distribution among Israeli Jewish women with premalignant and cervical cancer.

Methods Fifty-two specimens with invasive cervical cancer and 50 specimens with high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2/3) were identified. Human papillomavirus genotyping in paraffin-embedded specimens was performed by deparaffinization of the tissue sections and DNA extraction, followed by HPV genotype detection using a validated polymerase chain reaction (PCR)–based HPV GenoArray test kit, to simultaneously identify 21 HPV genotypes.

Results Forty-eight (48/52; 92.3%) cervical cancer samples demonstrated PCR-amplifiable DNA (non-HPV DNA). Forty (83.3%) of 48 samples were high-risk (HR) HPV positive. Six (12.5%) of 48 patients showed multiple HR HPV infections. Human papillomavirus types 16 and 18 dominated covering 28 (58.3%) and 14 (29.16%) of 48 samples. Human papillomavirus types 16 and 18 coinfected all 6 cases of multiple HR HPV infections. In CIN2/3 samples, 37 (78.7%) of 47 samples demonstrated PCR-amplifiable DNA (non-HPV DNA), and 20 (54.0%) of these 37 samples were infected by HPV. Human papillomavirus type 16 was found in 19 (95.0%) of 20 cases. Human papillomavirus type 18 was found in 3 (15.0%) of 20 cases; hence, HPV16 and HPV18 contributed to 100% of the cases.

Conclusions Human papillomavirus types 16 and 18 were responsible for the vast majority of invasive cervical cancer and CIN2/3 specimens (81.2% and 100%, respectively). Therefore, it is essential to include the HPV vaccine in the vaccine schedule of the Israeli population.