Human papillomavirus detection in oral potentially malignant disorders and oral squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Human papillomavirus is associated with a subset of head and neck cancer (HNCC) which 90 % of it is Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC). The purpose of the research is to detect human papillomavirus (HPV) in OPMDs and OSCC using immunohistochemistry (IHC). A total of 118 formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissues were selected comprising of normal oral mucosa (NOM) (n=9), oral epithelial hyperplastic tissue (OEH) (n=31), oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) cases (n=32) and OSCC cases (n=46). The cases were retrieved from 3 different places which are Oral Pathology Laboratory, Faculty of Dentistry, National University of Malaysia; Institute of Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur and Tuanku Mizan Hospital, Kuala Lumpur. The IHC staining was manually performed using HPV antibody (Clone K1H8, Dako) following manufacturer's instruction and assessed semi-quantitatively (positivity and staining intensity) between all groups. Positive and negative controls were used to validate the IHC run. All data were then analysed using SPSS version 23.0 and p values < 0.05 were considered significant. HPV positive was found higher in OSCC (34.78%) compared with OEH (3.22%) and OPMDs (3.12%). In this present study, HPV were increased following degree of malignancy. The finding suggests that HPV plays important role in OSCC.