Interrelation of HPV-infection of endometry carcinoma and its clinical-morphological features

Background. There are contradictory data on the detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) in the tumor tissue in endometrial cancer (EС). Objective: to assess HPV infection rates in EC tumor tissues and to establish the relationship between the status of HPV infection and tumor morphological characteristics. Materials and methods. 57 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples of EC patients aged 47–78 years were studied. HPV DNAs were found in 54.4 % of samples. Results and conclusion. We did not reveal an association between the HPV tumor status and age, metastasis or invasion depth. However, there was an interdependence between HPV infection and some morphological characteristics of the tumor: its histological type (adenocarcinomas with squamous cell differentiation were HPV-positive 1.8 times more frequent compared to adenocarcinomas without one; in the first case, tumor tissues were more often infected with HPV 16, and in the second case with HPV 18); tumor grade (in the total cohort and in serous-papillary adenocarcinomas, tumors with higher grades were more often HPV-infected: from 0 to 81.8 % and from 0 to 100 % respectively); disease stage (in the total cohort the percentage of HPV-positive tumors in stage II was 2.4 times and in stage III – 1.6 times higher than in stage I, and stage IA tumors were HPV-positive 2.3 times more often than IB tumors); type of tumor growth (tumors with infiltrative growth type were HPV-positive 1.7 times more often than with exophytic growth, and 2.2 times more often than with mixed growth). The achieved results do not allow us to conclude with confidence that HPV is the main tumor forming factor in EC.

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