Human papillomavirus and skin cancer

Abstract

Human papillomavirus (HPV) appears to be the most ubiquitous of the human viruses. Over 100 HPV types have been identified. A minority of HPV cause cutaneous warts and mucosal condylomata. The HPV that cause mucosal condylomata put the patient at various degrees of risk for developing cancers, particularly cervical cancer. The majority of HPV infect the skin of normal and immunocompromised individuals. In normal people, most of these HPV appear to establisha latent infection of the skin, most likely as normal flora residing in hair follicles; however, in patients with various systemic and localized depressions of cell-mediated immunity, someHPV infections appear to be involved in the development of nonmelanotic skin cancer and its precursor lesions in skin, usually in sunlight-exposed areas. Circumstantial evidence suggeststhat these HPV may have a role in promoting proliferative lesions of the skin, although their sites of active infection and mode of transmission to susceptible individuals remain unknown. © 2001, Elsevier Science Inc.