Association between the infections of Trichomonas vaginalis and uterine cervical human papillomavirus: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) may have an impact on other reproductive tract infections. Studies on the connection between the infection of TV and human papillomavirus (HPV) have been inconsistent. We performed a systematic review of the relevant articles through keywords that satisfy the criteria and filtered the articles according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 16 eligible studies were screened for the meta-analysis, involving a total of 150,605 women. RevMan 5.4 software was used for meta-analysis of the selected literatures. The results showed that the papers included in this study had good homogeneity and no significant publication bias was found in the current analysis. The pooled estimates using a fixed-effects model showed that TV was more prevalent in HPV-infected women than in non-infected women [odds ratio (OR): 1.51, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.29–1.75]; In turn, HPV was more widespread in TV-infected women than in uninfected women (OR: 3.62, 95% CI: 2.71–4.85). Moreover, the interaction between TV and HPV infection was insensitive to the deletion of some studies and correlation coefficients, consequently, the results were robust and reliable. These results suggested that TV is positively associated with HPV infection, and HPV is also a risk factor for TV infection.

Keywords:

• Trichomonas vaginalis
• HPV
• infection
• correlation

Author contributions

X.M. and Z.Z. designed the study and critically revised the paper. R.Z., D.L., X.X., Y.Y., M.G., L.Z., and S.Z. collected the relevant articles and performed the meta-analysis. X.M., Z.Z., X.T., Z.Y., and S.W. analysed the results and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81802028), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Xinxiang City (No. GG2021011), and the Doctoral Scientific Research Activation Foundation of Xinxiang Medical University (Nos. XYBSKYZZ202140 and XYBSKYZZ201631).