1. ¹Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2. ²Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Community and Family Medicine and the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA
3. ³Department of Pathology, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA
4. ⁴Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Correspondence: Dr Heather H. Nelson, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, 420 Delaware Street SE, MMC 806, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA. E-mail: hhnelson@umn.edu

Received 1 February 2008; Revised 8 April 2008; Accepted 30 April 2008; Published online 12 June 2008.

Abstract

An increasing number of studies report that genus human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are associated with skin cancer, with suggestions of specificity for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the skin. We have conducted a systematic examination of HPV DNA in tumors from immunocompetent hosts, including SCC and basal cell carcinoma (BCC), using a highly sensitive methodology and population-based samples to test the hypothesis that a differential prevalence of -HPVs exists between SCC (n=101) and BCC (n=101) tumors. When testing for all known -HPV types, we found no significant difference in HPV prevalence between the two histologies. However, SCC lesions were significantly more likely to be infected with HPV genus -species 1 (includes types 5 and 8), than BCC samples (P=0.01); this difference was not observed for any other species. A histologic difference was also observed for those HPV types previously reported to be important in skin cancer (P=0.003). SCC samples showed a higher rate of infectivity (that is, were positive for multiple types) than BCC tumors (P=0.02). These data highlight the potential importance of various genus -HPV types, in particular genus -species 1 in SCC, and support the hypothesis of a behavioral difference of the virus within the two major histological skin cancers.