Association of human papillomavirus genomic sequences by polymerase chain reaction in gastric carcinomas in Brazil.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) in patients with gastric cancer and compare with a control group. STUDY DESIGN: Forty paraffin samples of gastric cancer and 40 endoscopic normal mucosa and peripheral blood controls were subjected to examination by polymerase chain reaction for the L1 gene of HPV. The extracted DNA was amplified in 2 reaction systems using 2 pairs of primers: MY09/MY11 and GP+5/GP+6. We used Milli-Q water as negative control and a mixture of 1 microL of human blood plus 0.25 microL of plasmid pBR322 (HPV-16) as positive control. RESULTS: HPV was found in 4 patients with gastric cancer and 10 patients without cancer. CONCLUSION: There was no statistically significant difference between the 2 samples (p = 0.077).