Abstract: Objective  To explore the prevalence and distribution of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in cervical biopsy tissues or exfoliated cell specimens of pregnant women worldwide. Methods  Articles published in PubMed, Medline, Elsevier Science, Web of Science Database and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Database of Chinese Scientific and Technical Periodicals, Wan Fang Database, and the China Biology Medical Literature Database were retrieved. The overall HPV prevalence in pregnant women, the HPV prevalence in three trimesters and the prevalence of 7 subtypes (16, 6, 18, 11, 58, 31, and 33) were calculated. Results  A total of 28 articles were selected, including 13640 pregnant women. Among them, 2294 were HPV positive, with the prevalence rate being 16.82%, and rate among Chinese women being 15.53%. The prevalence rates during early, mid and late pregnancy were 18.20%, 14.38% and 19.32%, respectively. Women younger than 24 years old (23.94%) had the highest prevalence rate. The most common subtypes were 16(3.86%), 6(2.45%), 18(1.80 %) and 11(1.76%). Conclusion  HPV prevalence rate is high among pregnant women, especially in women younger than 24 years old, and the most common subtype of infection is HPV-16.

Key words: Human papillomavirus, Type-distribution, Cervix uteri, Prevalence, Pregnant women