The prevalence of human papilloma virus (HPV)-16 in patients with cervical cancer, the physical status of HPV-16 in patients with cervical lesions, and the role of HPV-16 integration in cervical carcinogenesis were investigated. HPV genotyping was performed by using PCR approach with the primer GP5+/GP6+ and type-specific primer on biopsy specimens taken operatively from 198 women. Multiple PCR was done to detect physical status of HPV-16 in a series of cervical liquid-based cytology samples and biopsy specimens obtained from different cervical lesions with HPV-16 infection, including 112 specimens with cervical cancer, 151 specimens with CIN I, 246 specimens with GIN II and 120 specimens with CINIII. The results showed that there were 112 cervical cancer samples (56.57% of total cervical cancer patients) with HPV-16 infection. The frequency of HPV-16 pure integration was 65.18% (73/112), 56.57% (47/120), 23.58% (58/246) and 7.95% (12/151) in cervical cancer, CINIII, GIN II and GIN I patients respectively. In situ hybridization was performed on some paraffin-embedded sections of GIN 11, CINIII and cervical cancer to verify the physical status of HPV-16 infection. Significant difference was observed between cervical cancer and GIN I, GIN IT, CINIII in the frequency of HPV-16 integration (P<0.01). It is suggested that HPV-16 is the most prevalent type and is associated with cervical cancer. In the case of HPV-16 infection there are close associations between the severity of cervical lesions and the frequency of HPV-16 integration. The application of testing HPV genotyping and physical status based on detection of HC-II HPV DNA would be in favor of predicting the prognosis of cervical precancerosis and enhancing the screening accuracy of cervical cancer.