HUMAN-PAPILLOMAVIRUS AND EPSTEIN-BARR-VIRUS IN EPITHELIAL CARCINOMAS OF THE HEAD AND NECK REGION

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA has been detected in carcin omas of the upper aerodigestive tract. However; studies of the subject show considerable variation in their results, and the causal relation ship between HPV and squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck are a still remains to be determined Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is consisten tly detected in nasopharyngeal carcinoma lesions, but little is known about its association with other carcinomas of the head and neck regio n. The present study was carried our on the role of HPV and EBV in epi thelial carcinomas of the upper aerodigestive tract. Materials and met hods: The study material comprised 79 frozen biopsy samples from epith elial head and neck carcinomas. DNA was extracted from frozen biopsy s amples for analysis using Southern blot hybridization (SBH) and polyme rase chain reaction (PCR) to detect HPV DNA. Results: HPV DNA was dete cted in 13 samples (16.5%) by SBH under low stringency conditions and in three samples (3.8%) by PCR using general primers targeting the HPV L1 region. HPV seemed to have affinity for labial carcinomas: four of the six samples (66.7%) were HPV DNA positive. The detection rate of HPV diminished from the labial and oral epithelium towards the larynge al region. In SBH, EBV DNA was not found in any of the biopsy samples. Conclusions: HPV seems to be involved in multifactorial carcinogenesi s in the head and neck epithelium, but the association is not as evide nt as that found in genital carcinomas. The results suggest that EBV i s not associated with sporadic nasopharyngeal carcinomas.