Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of HPVs in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinomas (OSCCs) affecting Malaysian population and to identify different types of High risk and Low risk HPVs in OSCCs.
Methods: One hundred and five fresh frozen OSCC samples were used in this study. In addition, buccal swabs from 105 healthy individuals were taken as controls. Two-tube nested PCR with degenerate primers pairs MY 9/11 followed by GP5+/GP6+, was performed to amplify a segment of gene from the L1 region of the virus. The outer MY primer set amplified approximately 450 bp while the internal GP primers generate an approximately 140 bp long fragment within the sequence amplified by the outer primer pair. DNA sequencing was performed to identify the HPV type.
Results: HPV DNA was detected in 54 of the 105 OSCC samples (51.4 %). Of the 54 samples, two third (66%) were found to have high risk HPVs while the remaining were found to have low risk HPVs. Smoking, alcohol abuse, tobacco chewing, clinical stage, tumour grade, and tumour-node-metastasis status were not associated with HPV presence (P> 0.05). In contrast, from 105 normal individuals, 26 (24.8%) were positive for HPV. Out of the 26 positive samples, 76% had low risk HPVs. The prevalence of HPV and its association with age, gender, smoking habits, tobacco or alcohol use were statistically not significant (P> 0.05).
Conclusion: Our study suggests HPV is associated with OSCCs although HPV may be present in the oral cavity in healthy individuals as well. Hence early screening for this virus may help to prevent HPV-associated diseases, such as oral cancer and other oral lesions, which may develop later.