J Pathol Transl Med.  2020 Sep;54(5):411-418. 10.4132/jptm.2020.06.22.

Prevalence of high-risk human papillomavirus and its genotype distribution in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Hospital Pathology, Bucheon St. Mary’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
  • 2Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Bucheon St. Mary’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
  • 3Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
  • 4Department of Hospital Pathology, Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Background
High-risk (HR) human papillomavirus (HPV) is found in a subset of head and neck (HN) squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). For oropharyngeal SCCs, HR HPV positivity is known to be associated with good prognosis, and a separate staging system for HPV-associated carcinomas using p16 immunohistochemistry (IHC) as a surrogate test has been adopted in the 8th American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system. We examined the HR HPV status and the genotype distribution in five HN subsites.
Methods
Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections were used for p16 IHC and DNA extraction. HPV DNA detection and genotyping were done employing either a DNA chip-based or real-time polymerase chain reaction–based method.
Results
During 2011–2019, a total of 466 SCCs were tested for HPV DNA with 34.1% positivity for HR HPV. Among HN subsites, the oropharynx showed the highest HR HPV prevalence (149/205, 75.1%), followed by the sinonasal tract (3/14, 21.4%), larynx (5/43, 11.6%), hypopharynx (1/38, 2.6%), and oral cavity (1/166, 0.6%). The most common HPV genotype was HPV16 (84.3%) followed by HPV35 (6.9%) and HPV33 (4.4%). Compared with HR HPV status, the sensitivity and specificity of p16 IHC were 98.6% and 94.3% for the oropharynx, and 99.2% and 93.8% for the tonsil, respectively.
Conclusions
Using a Korean dataset, we confirmed that HR HPV is most frequently detected in oropharyngeal SCCs. p16 positivity showed a good concordance with HR HPV DNA for oropharyngeal and especially tonsillar carcinomas. The use of p16 IHC may further be extended to predict HR HPV positivity in sinonasal tract SCCs.

Keyword

Human papillomavirus; Head and neck; Squamous cell carcinoma; Oropharynx

Figure

  • Fig. 1. High-risk (HR) human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence and p16 positivity in tonsillar squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) across years at diagnosis. Trends in the proportion of HR HPV-positive (black line) and p16-positive (grey line) newly diagnosed tonsillar SCCs for the Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital cohort. Numbers above or below a datapoint indicate the total number of tests done in the corresponding year (black, HPV polymerase chain reaction; grey, p16 immunohistochemistry).


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