Association between human papillomavirus infection and lung cancer

Objective To investigate the association between human papillomavirus (HPV) and lung cancer. Methods We examined a series of 83 lung cancer patients with HPV DNA in both lung tumor specimens and adjacent normal specimens from Fujian province. Twenty-one of the most clinically relevant HPV types from the highly conserved L1 region of the viral genome were analyzed, using the PCR amplification and were followed by reverse hybridization with specific probes. Chi-square test of paired design was used to test the difference of HPV positive rates between lung cancer specimens and adjacent normal specimens. Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test were used to analyze the differences of HPV positive rate of tumor specimens on factors as gender, age, histological subtype, clinical stage, smoking status and alcohol consumption. Results HPV was detected in 7 of the 83 tumor specimens and in 6 of the paired normal lung tissues. There was no significant correlation between HPV and lung cancer (P>0.999). Neither demographic characteristics nor clinical features were found with significant differences on HPV in lung cancer tissues (P>0.05). Conclusion Our data showed that HPV was not significantly associated with the risk of lung cancer in Fujian province. Key words: Human papillomavirus; Lung neoplasms; Biomarker