HPV in squamous cell carcinoma: An Immuno-histochemical study

Abstract

Objectives: This study is performed to evaluate the immune-expression of human papillomavirus (HPV) in a series of 100 samples of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) from different sites of the body and to correlate it with anatomical site and grade of the tumor, age and sex of the patients, grade of tumor and to compare our results with those of other studies. Patients and methods: There were 100 patients with primary SCC from larynx, cervix, oral cavity and skin. Samples were obtained in a pro and retrospective fashion from teaching hospitals and private laboratories in Mosul. During a period of seven months from July 2009 through January 2010. Immunoexpression assay was performed using immunohistochemically (IHC). Results: The patients' age ranged between 15 and 90 years, with a mean of 51.28 year. There were 62 males and 38 females. Only nine of the hundred cases were positive for HPV, 3 out of 45 cases of laryngeal SCC were positive (6.67%) and 22 of oral cavity SCC cases were positive (27.27%). All of the 23 cervical and the 10 skin cases were negative for HPV. HPV expression was significantly correlated with the primary anatomical site but not with the age and sex of the patients in laryngeal and oral cavity SCC. Conclusions: 1.) HPV was expressed in nine out of 100 cases of SCC, adopting immunohistochemistry (IHC) for its detection, six of the cases were in the oral cavity and three were in the larynx with none from cervix or skin. 2.) In the positive cases the only significant correlations were with the anatomical site and in relation to grade in the larynx. 3.) Our results are low when compared to more sensitive methods for HPV detection like Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Southern Blot Hybridization (SBH) and In Situ Hybridization (ISH); however this may also be attributed to the relatively small number of cases and to the possibility that our cases of SCC are not HPV related.