Association of viral load with HPV16 positive cervical cancer pathogenesis: causal relevance in isolates harboring intact viral E2 gene.

We tested the hypothesis that cervical cancers (CaCx) harbor high HPV16 viral load compared to controls and this is influenced by E2 status and age of subjects. Viral load (natural log transformed values) per 100ng genomic DNA was estimated (152 cases and 87 controls) by Taqman assay. Median viral load was significantly higher (Mann-Whitney U test) among cases (17.