Proportion of Human Papilloma Virus in Squamous Epithelial Lesions of Head and Neck- A Polymerase Chain Reaction Study

Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV) have been implicated to cause 5% of human cancers. The role of HPV as an etiological agent in the development of precancerous lesions and cancers of head and neck is increasingly being explored. The wide variation in prevalence of HPV has, to some extent, impeded a full understanding of association between HPV and benign and malignant lesions of head and neck. We wanted to determine the proportion of Human Papilloma Virus in squamous epithelial lesions of head and neck using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) studying snap frozen fresh biopsy samples.METHODSThis is a descriptive study of cases presenting to the Department of Pathology, Govt. T D Medical College, Alappuzha, Kerala, conducted over a period of one year. 40 cases of clinically suspicious premalignant or malignant squamous lesions of head and neck were biopsied and were subjected to histopathological study and PCR using primer MY11/GP6. Data was entered in Excel sheet. The association of HPV positivity with lesions of head and neck was assessed using SPSS softwareRESULTSOf the 40 cases studied, the mean age of the cases studied was 55.98 years. Male to female ratio was 29:11. Most of the cases were alcoholics (60%), with smokers (55%) and the habit of pan chewing in 20% of the cases. The histopathological lesions studied were mostly malignant cases (squamous cell carcinoma- 77.5% of cases) and rest were oral keratosis, vocal cord polyp and a lesion showing chronic inflammation only. The predominant site of biopsy was from oral cavity (80%), followed by larynx (16%) and oropharynx (13%). HPV positivity was obtained in 2.5% of the cases, which was not statistically significant. HPV positivity did not show statistically significant association with any of the risk factor behaviours like alcoholism, smoking or pan chewing. The morphological diagnosis associated with HPV was moderately differentiated, which was also not statistically significant.CONCLUSIONSHPV positivity was obtained in 2.5% of the cases studied with no significant correlation between HPV and squamous epithelial lesions of head and neck.