Human papilloma virus (HPV) infection is documented to be involved in the development of epithelial malignancies, mostly in cervical cancer. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients have an increased prevalence of such an infection. We report the case of a 55-year-old female SLE patient who developed multiple in situ squamous cell carcinomas on her fingers, after chronic HPV infection. HPV-3...

Background—While telomerase is undetectable in most normal somatic tissues, telomerase activation has been detected in many immortal cell lines and various cancers. Aim—To investigate telomerase expression in hepatocellular carcinoma, and to assess the expression of the RNA component of telomerase, hTR. Methods—39 hepatocellular carcinomas were studied using a telomerase polymerase chain reacti...

BACKGROUND Human papilloma virus infection is associated with genesis and malignant potential of cervical cancer. E6 and E7 oncogens are known to bind to p53 and retinoblastoma gene products, abrogating their functions as tumor suppressors, leading to an abnormal cell cycle machinery. Roles of the p53 homolog p63 have also been postulated, E6 expression leading to TAp63b degradation allowing an...

Aim—To examine the value of immunohistochemistry in defining a keratin profile to aid cervical histopathological diagnosis. Methods—Immunohistochemical localisation of keratins 17, 10, and 19 was studied in 268 cervical biopsies from 216 women including normal epithelia (with and without human papilloma virus), low and high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and invasive carcinoma. The p...

The protein capsid L1 of the human papilloma virus (HPV) - a key factor in the cervical carcinogenesis - is considered, together with p16, EGFR and COX-2, a characteristic marker for the evaluation of the malignancy progression and prognostic, in terms of tumoral aggressiveness. The purpose of the present study was to make a comparative assessment between the immunohistochemical pattern of p16,...

AIM To examine the value of immunohistochemistry in defining a keratin profile to aid cervical histopathological diagnosis. METHODS Immunohistochemical localisation of keratins 17, 10, and 19 was studied in 268 cervical biopsies from 216 women including normal epithelia (with and without human papilloma virus), low and high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and invasive carcinoma. The...

The latest experimental data on the role of viruses in the origin of human tumors are discussed. This group of viruses consists of T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV 1), herpes viruses (HHV 8 and Epstein-Barr virus), hepatitis B virus, and human papilloma viruses. The most typical feature of this group of viruses is a very long latent period from the initial infection to the development of the ...

To investigate the role of telomerase in the multistage pathogenesis of lung cancer, we examined 205 fresh and archival tissue samples obtained from 40 patients, 34 of whom had invasive lung carcinoma, 5 with carcinoma in situ (CIS) without invasion, and 1 without lung carcinoma. We analyzed samples for telomerase enzyme activity using the semiquantitative PCR-based telomeric repeat amplificati...

Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is suggested to be a long (~7 kb) non-coding RNA. MALAT1 is overexpressed in many human carcinomas, but its function remains unknown. To investigate the role of MALAT1 in human cervical cancer progression, we designed and used short hairpin RNA to inhibit MALAT1 expression in CaSki cells and validated its effect on cell proliferati...

Professor Harald zur Hausen, emeritus Scientific Director and Chairman of the Management Board of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, has made seminal observations that identify novel human papilloma viruses as key contributors to cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women. Professor zur Hausen's discoveries include detection of novel human papill...