Biologic importance and prognostic significance of selected clinicopathological parameters in patients with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, with emphasis on smoking, protein p16 INK4a expression, and HPV status

The aim of this study is to evaluate the biologic importance and prognostic significance of selected clinicopathological parameters in patients with oral (OSCC) and oropharyngeal (OPSCC) squamous cell carcinoma, with emphasis on smoking, protein p16 INK4a (p16) expression, and human papillomavirus (HPV) status. The study sample consisted of 48 patients with OSCC and 44 patients with OPSCC. Half of the patients were nonsmokers and the other half were gender-, age- and tumor localization-matched smokers. p16 expression was detected in 17/48 (35 %) OSCCs and in 36/44 (82 %) OPSCCs and HPV DNA was present in 7/48 (15 %) OSCCs and in 35/44 (80 %) OPSCCs. The sensitivity and specificity of p16 expression for HPV DNA presence were 0.74 and 0.88, respectively. The OPSCCs were more frequently basaloid (p 0.05). The survival of patients with HPV-positive tumors was significantly longer (median 112 months; 95% CI 54 – 112 months) than that of patients with HPV-negative tumors (median 17 months; 95% CI 12 – 39 months) (p < 0.001). The HPV status of OSCC/OPSCC is an important biological and prognostic parameter and should be examined in all cases, using PCR or immunohistochemical detection of surrogate marker p16. Smoking itself does not seem to be an impo rtant prognostic factor.