The Swedish National Cervical Screening Registry collects and evaluates comprehensive, nationwide health data to optimise organised cervical cancer prevention. Since all cervical cancer specimens are saved in biobanks, population-based data from the specimens should be available for analysis and linkage with other health information.

We identified all cervical cancers diagnosed in Sweden during 2002-2011 (4254 confirmed cases) and requested the tissue blocks to retrieve human papillomavirus (HPV) genotype data using general primer PCR with Luminex genotyping and real-time PCR targeting the E6/E7 regions of HPV16/18.

We obtained blocks from 2932/4254 (69%) of cases. Valid HPV genotyping data was retrieved for 2850 cases (97%). The most common type was HPV16 (60%), followed by HPV18 (19%), HPV45 (7%), HPV31 (3%), HPV33 (2%), HPV52 (2%), HPV39 (1%), HPV70 (1%), HPV56 (1%), HPV35 (1%), HPV58 (1%) and HPV59 (1%). Ninety-six percent of all HPV-positive cases had a single infection. Eighty-nine cases were HPV-positive only when testing for the HPV16/18-E6/E7 region.

We present one of the largest series of HPV-genotyped cervical cancers to date. The systematic collection of cervical cancer HPV genotyping data by the screening registry will facilitate prevention and monitoring of HPV type-specific disease burden.