Human papilloma virus (HPV) infection leads to the development of head and neck lesions but offers better prognosis in malignant Indian patients.
Head and neck cancers constitute a multifactorial global disease burden and are associated with human papilloma virus (HPV) as a possible risk factor. The aim of the study is to understand the relationship between HPV and the development of head and neck lesions in Indian patients. To this end, frequency of HPV was assessed in relation to different demographic and etiological features and correlated with patient survival. The prevalence of HPV significantly increased from mild dysplastic lesions (43.6%) to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) stage IV (68.5%) with HPV 16 being pre-dominant in both dysplasia (43.8%) and HNSCC (61.5%). Similar trend was observed in increasing grades of the tumour. In invasive lesions, patients aged below the median age of onset showed significantly higher occurrence of HPV than those above it. Patients harbouring HPV showed a significantly better survival irrespective of age of onset. Likewise, better survival was observed in tobacco habit negative/HPV-positive patients, and as reflected in both univariate and multivariate analysis. Majority of the HPV 16-positive samples showed moderate/high nuclear expression of HPV E6 and E7 proteins in tumours and respective basal layer of adjacent normal tissues. Thus, our data indicate that frequent HPV infection, along with tobacco habit, is a pre-requisite factor for the development of HNSCC of Indian patients but offers a better survival even during tobacco usage, implicating its diagnostic and prognostic importance.
Department of Oncogene Regulation, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, 37, S.P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata, 700026, India.
Shreya
S
Sarkar
Department of Surgical Oncology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata, India.
Neyaz
N
Alam
Department of Surgical Oncology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata, India.
Jayanta
J
Chakraborty
Department of Surgical Oncology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata, India.
Jaydip
J
Biswas
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata, India.
Syam Sundar
SS
Mandal
Basic Research, Saroj Gupta Cancer Centre and Research Institute, Kolkata, India.
Susanta
S
Roychoudhury
Department of Oncogene Regulation, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, 37, S.P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata, 700026, India. ckpanda.cnci@gmail.com.
Chinmay Kumar
CK
Panda
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D027383:Papillomaviridae / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology; D015995:Prevalence; D011379:Prognosis; D012307:Risk Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; Human papilloma virus; Prognostic marker