Clinical role of hWAPL in histologic diagnosis of cervical cancer and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia: Correlation with p16INK4a expression and HPV testing

In this study, we examined the expression of hWAPL in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) I-III and cervical squamous cell carcinoma, and investigated clinical application value of hWAPL in diagnosis of cervical disease. 90 samples were collected, and two slides from each sample were immunostained using hWAPL and p16INK4a antibody. HPV-DNA testing was performed using the HC2 DNA test. The expression intensity of hWAPL in SCC group, CIN III group, CIN II group and CIN I group was obviously higher than that in normal cervix group, and the expression intensity in SCC group, CIN III group and CIN II group was higher than that in CIN I group. Based on ROC curves of hWAPL, when using ≥CIN I, ≥CIN II and ≥CIN III as cutoff for positive classification, area under the curve (AUC) was 0.815, 0.699, and 0.616, respectively. Therefore, hWAPL may be a promising candidate for diagnosis of low-grade CIN.