1. ¹Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, California, USA
2. ²Division of Dermatology, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
3. ³Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
4. ⁴Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
5. ⁵Division for the Characterization of Tumorviruses, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

Correspondence: Dr Maryam M. Asgari, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, 2000 Broadway, Oakland, California 94612, USA. E-mail: Maryam.m.asgari@kp.org

Received 5 June 2007; Revised 24 October 2007; Accepted 31 October 2007; Published online 10 January 2008.

Abstract

The presence of certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) is a known risk factor for the development of anogenital squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). A similar association has been hypothesized for cutaneous SCCs, although, to our knowledge, no studies to date have combined sensitive HPV DNA detection techniques with epidemiologic data controlling for known risk factors to explore the association. We designed a case–control study examining HPV prevalence using highly sensitive PCR-detection assays in tissue samples from 85 immunocompetent patients with histologically confirmed SCCs and 95 age-matched individuals without a prior history of skin cancer. A standardized interview was administered to all study subjects to collect information pertaining to potential confounding variables. The overall detection rate of HPV DNA was high in case lesions (54% ) and perilesions (50% ) and in both sun-exposed normal tissue (59% ) and non-sun-exposed normal tissue (49% ) from controls. In comparing case tissue to control tissue, there was no differential detection of HPV DNA across various HPV species. However, HPV DNA from -papillomavirus species 2 was more likely to be identified in tumors than in adjacent healthy tissue among cases (paired analysis, odds ratio=4.0, confidence interval=1.3–12.0). The high prevalence of HPV DNA detected among controls suggests that HPV DNA is widely distributed among the general population. However, the differential detection of HPV -papillomavirus species in tumors among cases suggests that certain HPV types may be involved in the progression of cutaneous SCCs.