Human papillomavirus(HPV) and Epstein-Barr virus(EBV) are epitheliotrophic viruses invading the upper aerodigestive tract. HPV produces a diversity of benign or malignant tumors and EBV is known to be a major etiologic factor of nasopharyngeal
carcinoma.
We evaluated the HPV and EBV infection and co-infection rate in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of larynx and the significance of HPV infection of different subtypes in the tumorigenesis of head and neck carcinoma.
Thirty-four cases of nasopharyngeal carcinomas and thirty-nine cases of laryngeal squamous cell carcinomas were analyzed for the detection of HPV DNA and EBV RNA(EBER 1) by in situ hybridization technique.
@ES The following results were obtained:
@EN 1) HPV DNA was detected from 5 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinomas(21.73%) and 15 cases of laryngeal carcinomas(38.46%), HPV type 18 was most commonly detected from as many as 12 cases.
2) EBER-1 was detected from 29 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinomas(85.29%) and 7 cases of laryngeal carcinomas(17.95%).
3) The co-infection rate was 11.76%(4 cases ) in nasopharyngeal carcinomas and 10.26%(4 cases) in laryngeal carcinomas.
In conclusion, EBV infection is strongly suspected to be the cause of nasopharyngeal carcinomas, while HPVs, especially the HPV subtype 18, are thought to be in a part, the causes for nasopharyngeal carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of
larynx.
For
the co-infected cases, however, whether these viruses have "affinity" to head and neck tumor tissues or the two viruses together have been the causal factor is uncertain. (Korean J Otolaryngol 39 : 2, 1996)
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