More P, Kheur S, Patekar D, Kheur M, Gupta AA, Raj AT, Patil S. Assessing the nature of the association of human papillomavirus in oral cancer with and without known risk factors.
Transl Cancer Res 2020;
9:3119-3125. [PMID:
35117675 PMCID:
PMC8798937 DOI:
10.21037/tcr.2020.03.81]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2019] [Accepted: 03/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Background
Published studies assessing the association of human papillomavirus (HPV) and oral cancer, often include cases with additional confounders such as alcohol, tobacco, thus, precluding the assessment of HPV as a independent risk factor. Further apart from eliciting the mere presence of HPV, it is vital that the nature of the association is delineated for eliciting a causal inference. Thus, the present study assessed the presence and nature of the association of HPV in oral cancer cases with and without known risk factors.
Methods
The study compares the prevalence of HPV in oral cancer cases with known risk factors (group 1, n=15) to oral cancer (group 2, n=15) and oral epithelial dysplasia (group 3, n=15) cases with no known risk factors using PCR. Cases which are positive for HPV were subjected to p16 and p53 immunostaining to determine potential causal inference.
Results
HPV 16 was detected in only 1 case of group I, 3 cases of group II, and was absent in group III. HPV 18 was negative in all the 3 groups. All the HPV positive cases were negative for p16 and positive for p53 immunostaining.
Conclusions
Only a minor proportion of oral cancer cases without risk factors were positive for HPV 16. Even among these HPV 16 positive cases, the immunostaining profile (p53 positive and p16 negative) excludes the involvement of E6 and E7 mediated carcinogenesis. Thus even the weak HPV association noted in the present study cases may not be of causal nature.
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