Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in penile carcinomas in Argentina: Analysis of primary tumors and lymph nodes

Abstract

Among sexually transmitted diseases, infection by human papillomavirus (HPV) has become one of the most important. On the other hand, though epidemiological data show that some HPV types are closely associated with cervical cancer, few reports have been found with reference to penile carcinoma because of its rare occurrence. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between HPV infection and penile cancer in Argentina. A retrospective study was carried out on 38 white men with penile squamous-cell carcinoma. Sixty-five archival fixed biopsies taken from 34 primary penile tumors, 25 nodal metastases, 1 skin "satellite" metastasis and 5 histologically normal lymph nodes were used as specimens. HPV detection and typing were carried out by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using generic primers, combined with single-stranded conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis. HPV DNA was found in 71% patients, corresponding 81% of them to "high risk" types, with predominance of HPV 18. Both primary tumors and metastases showed concordance of HPV occurrence and type in both lesions. In 3 patients, HPV 16 was detected not only in primary tumors and metastases, but also in histologically normal lymph nodes. Our data indicate that most penile carcinomas in Argentine patients are etiologically related to HPV, especially to "high risk" genital types. The agreement in HPV detection between primary tumors and metastases suggests a potential viral role in tumor progression. HPV detection in otherwise histologically normal lymph nodes might be useful as early marker of a metastatic process.

Penile cancer: Importance of circumcision, human papillomavirus and smoking in in situ and invasive disease

“…In addition to extent of disease, we correlated the HPV DNA results with a variety of demographic, medical and behavioral risk factors. We found that 79.8% of the penile tumors contained HPV DNA, a higher proportion than the 10-74% reported in most recent series of penile cancers that were tested by PCR; [18][19][20][21] however, nearly 80% HPV positivity is close to the figure observed among the 618 other anogenital tumors (cervical, vulvar, vaginal and anal sites) tested in our previous studies. 3 Our findings suggest that penile cancer shares a similar etiology with other anogenital cancers in which high-risk HPV infection is thought to play a necessary but not sufficient role in the majority of tumors.…”

Immunogenicity and Safety of a 9-Valent HPV Vaccine

“…Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes premalignant and malignant lesions of the cervix, 1,2 vagina, 3,4 vulva, 4,5 anus, 4,6 penis, 7 and oropharynx, 8 as well as genital warts. 9,10 HPV is responsible for ∼5% of the global cancer disease burden.…”

Reactivity to human papillomavirus type 16 L1 virus-like particles in sera from patients with genital cancer and patients with carcinomas at five different extragenital sites

“…The prevalence of subclinical or latent penile HPV infections among young, sexually active and healthy individuals is reported between 20 and 50%, while the incidence of penile carcinoma is relatively low (Van Doornum et al, 1994;Wikström et al, 2000). In penile carcinoma patients from Argentina, HPV DNA was detected in 27 out of 38 (71%) of the cases using single-stranded conformational polymorphism; 10 of the 38 (26.3%) patients were found positive for HPV 16 (Picconi et al, 2000). The difference with the prevalence of HPV 16 specific antibody found in the present study might be attributed to geographical distribution or a specific subtype of penile cancer.…”