Eyebrow hairs from actinic keratosis patients harbor the highest number of cutaneous human papillomaviruses

Ines Schneider,Mandy D Lehmann,Eggert Stockfleth,Ingo Nindl,Vlada Kogosov

doi:10.1186/1471-2334-13-186

Abstract

BackgroundCutaneous human papillomavirus (HPV) infections seem to be associated with the onset of actinic keratosis (AK). This study compares the presence of cutaneous HPV types in eyebrow hairs to those in tissues of normal skin and skin lesions of 75 immunocompetent AK patients.MethodsBiopsies from AK lesions, normal skin and plucked eyebrow hairs were collected from each patient. DNA from these specimens was tested for the presence of 28 cutaneous HPV (betaPV and gammaPV) by a PCR based method.ResultsThe highest number of HPV prevalence was detected in 84% of the eyebrow hairs (63/75, median 6 types) compared to 47% of AK lesions (35/75, median 3 types) (p< 0.001) and 37% of normal skin (28/75, median 4 types) (p< 0.001), respectively. A total of 228 HPV infections were found in eyebrow hairs compared to only 92 HPV infections in AK and 69 in normal skin. In all three specimens HPV20, HPV23 and/or HPV37 were the most prevalent types. The highest number of multiple types of HPV positive specimens was found in 76% of the eyebrow hairs compared to 60% in AK and 57% in normal skin. The concordance of at least one HPV type in virus positive specimens was 81% (three specimens) and 88-93% of all three combinations with two specimens.ConclusionsThus, eyebrow hairs revealed the highest number of cutaneous HPV infections, are easy to collect and are an appropriate screening tool in order to identify a possible association of HPV and AK.

Highlights

Cutaneous human papillomavirus (HPV) infections seem to be associated with the onset of actinic keratosis (AK)
HPV infections in three different specimens A significant higher number of cutaneous HPV infections were detected in eyebrow hairs (63/75; 84%) compared to AK lesions (35/75; 47%) and normal skin (28/75; 37%) (p
In our present comprehensive study, we evaluated the prevalence and the concordant infections of cutaneous HPV types in eyebrow hairs and normal skin compared to skin lesions from 75 AK patients

Summary

Introduction

Cutaneous human papillomavirus (HPV) infections seem to be associated with the onset of actinic keratosis (AK). 151 HPV types are completely characterized (http://pave.niaid.nih.gov) and classified into mucosal/ genital (alphaPV) and cutaneous (betaPV, gammaPV, muPV, and nuPV) HPV types, based on sequence analyses and clinical manifestation [1,2]. Their causal association with (ano)genital carcinoma is fully established [3,4]. The increased risk of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in the presence of HPV infections of immunocompetent as well as immunosuppressed patients. In the SCC lesions of EV patients, cutaneous HPV types (predominantly beta1PV types especially HPV5 and HPV8) have been detected and are very likely etiologically linked with skin cancer in this specific genetic background [19], which is supported by HPV expression in skin tumors of EV patients [20]

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