Oral and genital human herpesvirus 8 and human papillomavirus in heterosexual partners

Low Rates of Dual-Site and Concordant Oral-Cervical Human Papillomavirus Infections and Cancers: A Systematic Review

Objective

The oral-cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) infection/cancer relationship is not well established. Oral-cervical HPV studies were reviewed to assess dual-site occurrence, HPV type concordance, and study quality/deficiencies.

Methods

PubMed, EMBASE, Ovid Medline, and Web of Science were searched between 1/1/1990 and 8/10/2021 for studies investigating HPV infections/cancers and type concordance between the oral cavity/oropharynx and cervix. Dual-site and concordant HPV infection rates were summarized as percentages; cancer diagnoses studies were summarized using standardized incidence ratios (SIR). The Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies (QATQS) evaluated study methodology.

Results

One hundred fourteen papers were identified. Most were cross-sectional (n=79, 69%), involved synchronous dual-site HPV testing (n=80, 70%), did not report HPV type concordance (n=62, 54%), and achieved moderate methodological QATQS ratings (n=81, 71%). The overall dual-site infection rate averaged 16%; the HPV type concordance rate averaged 41%, among those dually-infected women. Most HPV-related cancer diagnoses studies reported increased secondary cancer risk, with SIRs generally ranging from 1.4 to 29.4 for secondary cervical cancer after primary oral cancer and from 1.4 to 6.3 for secondary oral cancer after primary cervical cancer.

Conclusion/Impact

Oral-cervical HPV infections/cancers remain understudied. Future research should use stronger methodologies and HPV concordance analyses to better understand oral-cervical HPV epidemiology.

The prevalence of human herpesvirus 8 in normal, premalignant, and malignant cervical samples of Iranian women

BACKGROUND

Regard to this fact that the main transmission route of HPV and HHV-8 is via sexual activity, it is reasonable to speculate that coinfection of HPV and HHV-8 may have been played an important role in the development of cervical cancer. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of HHV-8 and the frequency of HPV and HHV-8 coinfection in cervical samples of patients with cervical cancer and healthy individuals.

METHODS

In total, 364 samples from 61 patients with cervical cancer, 124 women with premalignant lesions, and 179 healthy individuals were investigated by nested-PCR.

RESULTS

The frequency of HHV-8 was found to be 22.9%, 17.7%, and 14.5% in cervical cancer, premalignant lesions, and normal specimens, respectively (P = 0.308). The overall prevalence of coinfection between HHV-8 and HPV was shown to be 16.2%. The HPV prevalence was higher in HHV-8 positive samples than HHV-8 negative specimens in all three studied groups and this difference was reached a statistically significant level (P = 0.002). However, no significant differences were found between HHV-8 positivity and HPV genotypes (P = 0.08).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results showed the higher rate of HHV-8 genome detection in cervical cancer group than control group. However, future studies with larger sample sizes and evaluation of expression of HHV-8 proteins are warranted.

Elevated prevalence of high-risk HPV in healthy oral mucosa of users and nonusers of drugs in Northeastern Brazil

Variable rates of HPV infection have been reported in healthy oral mucosa worldwide. The main objective of this study was to detect and genotype HPV infection in users and nonusers of drugs with clinically healthy mucosa from the Northeast Brazil. Samples from 105 patients were amplified using the primers MY09/MY11 and GP5+/GP6+, and genotyping was performed by multiplex-PCR for HPV-6/11, 16 and 18. A total of 81.9% samples were positive. Among drug users, 84.5% presented the virus and 20.4% showed multiple infections. Among non-drug users, 78.7% were positive and 13.5% had multiple infections. Limited information is available on oral HPV in Brazilian population, especially for drug users, and our results showed higher HPV infection rates in both users and nonusers of drugs. More studies and researches focused on drug users including factors like sexual behavior, nutrition and cultural habits are necessary to enhance the comprehension of this relationship, and develop preventive strategies.