Human papillomaviruses (HPV) in tissue specimens of oral squamous cell papillomas and normal oral mucosa.

BACKGROUND The etiology of oral squamous cell papillomas (OSCP) is still unresolved. MATERIALS AND METHODS The presence of human papillomavirus (HPV) was examined, using PCR and three different consensus primers, in tissue specimens obtained from 49 patients with OSCP and 49 tissue specimens of histologically-normal oral mucosa obtained from the same number of individuals, who matched the patients with OSCP in age, gender and localization of the obtained tissue specimens. RESULTS Amplifiable DNA was recovered from 44 out of 49 and 45 out of 49 tissue specimens of OSCP and normal oral mucosa, respectively. HPV-6 was detected in three and HPV-16 in one out of 44 OSCP specimens tested. Three tissue specimens of normal oral mucosa were HPV DNA-positive, harboring HPV-6, HPV-11 and HPV-31. CONCLUSION Since no significant difference in the prevalence of HPV DNA between the patients with OSCP and the control subjects (9.1% vs. 6.7%; p=0.694) was observed, HPV is deemed to play a limited role in the etiology of OSCP, at least in Europe.