The cervicovaginal metabolome in the presence of dysbiosis, HPV persistence, and cervical dysplasia: a scoping review

Objective: Map what has been written so far in scientific articles, theses and dissertations on the metabolic/metabolome changes observed in the vaginal environment in the presence of dysbiosis, persistence of Human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical dysplasia. Methods: In this research, the PubMed search engine and the Scopus and Web of Science databases were used to research the scientific articles, and Google Scholar was used to research theses and dissertations (grey literature). Primary in vivo and in vitro studies about HPV-positive women and/or those with cytology/histology alteration of any age were included in order to evaluate the metabolome and/or metabolites in vaginal dysbiosis, normal microbiota, and cervical cancer development. The scientific articles will be selected using Endnote X9 software, which will help to delete duplicate articles, and the Rayyan software will be used for sorting titles and abstract reading (sorting) and reading full texts (eligibility). The theses and dissertations will be selected using Excel software. The studies will be selected by two evaluators independently, so the discrepancies will be resolved in the consensus meeting and, when necessary, there will be a third evaluator. The data extraction will be structured in Excel software, and it will be presented in table or figures and in the narrative forms. This scoping review will be conducted based on this protocol and will help to identify a scientific literature gap and will guide the conduct of future primary studies.