96. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Pathologie e. V ...

AG Oralpathologie
DO-087
Detection of human papillomavirus infection in head and neck
squamous cell carcinoma
J . Dreyer 1 , M . Barros 1 , G . Niedobitek 1
1 Unfallkrankenhaus Berlin, Institute for Pathology, Berlin
Aims. A sub-group of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC)
is associated with HPV infection, mainly with HPV16. The incidence of
this subset has increased and there is evidence to suggest that HPV-positive
HNSCC show a more favourable prognosis. There is, however, controversy
regarding the most suitable method for the detection of HPV
infection in this setting. We have compared HPV DNA in situ hybridisation
(ISH) with p16 immunohistochemistry (IHC).
Methods. 141 cases of HNSCC diagnosed between 1997 and 2010 were
identified. 119 patients (84.4%) were male and 22 (15.6%) were female.
Primary site and pTNM stage as well as all other relevant clinicopathological
data were extracted from the clinical and pathological files. Primary
sites were oropharynx in 65 cases, hypopharynx in 21 cases, floor
of mouth in 31 cases, tongue in 20 cases and other sites in the oral cavity
in 4 cases. Tissue-micro-arrays (TMA) with three 2 mm cores per case
were constructed. IHC for p16 (mtm laboratories) and ISH for high-risk
and low-risk HPV-DNA (Ventana) were carried out.
Results. 23 cases (16.3%) were positive for p16. Of these, 17 cases (12.1%
overall) also showed a nuclear signal for high-risk HPV-DNA by ISH.
No p16- cases were positive by ISH and no infection with low-risk HPV
types was detected. Thus, there was a statistically significant association
of p16 expression and high-risk HPV infection in our series (p