Immunopathology of papillomavirus-induced warts and skin cancers in immunodepressed and immunosuppressed patients

Abstract

Patients with genetic defects associated with depressed cell mediated immunity (CMI) [16,21], etc.) have an increased susceptibility to development of multiple, treatment-resistant warts. Patients who have been inadvertently immunosuppressed by chemotherapeutic drugs, used for malignancies, also have increased wart and skin cancer incidence [20], as do patients who have been purposely immunosuppressed for treatment of auto-or hyperimmune diseases, such as lupus erythematosus [7,20]. Patients who are immunosuppressed over long periods of time to enhance retention of organ transplants, such as renal allograft recipients, also have a high incidence of warts and skin cancers [3,4,7,8,17,20,25]. The cancer incidence in these patients seems to be proportional to the period of immunosup-(

Lymphoproliferative response to fusion proteins of human papillomaviruses in patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia

“…The rare disease of epidermodysplasia verruciformis, in which there is an underlying defect of cellmediated immunity (CMI) (5), is associated with widespread and persistent flat warts and plaque-like lesions which frequently progress to malignancy especially in sun-exposed areas (6). Similarly patients, immunosuppressed therapeutically after renal allograft transplantation, develop multiple persistent warts resistant to treatment, some of which may progress to skin carcinomas (6)(7)(8). An increase in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) in renal allograft recipients and in patients immunosuppressed as a result of underlying malignancy (9, 10) has been recognized for some time, and in some cases at leasf these lesions have been shown to be HPV-associated (11).…”