Different Human Papillomavirus 16/18 Infection in Chinese Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Living in Wuhan, China

Background: Inconsistency in the prevalence infection by human papillomavirus (hpv) in lung cancer patients were found between different countries with racial and geographic variations. Our previous reports have indicated that a high-risk hpv 16/18 DNA was frequently detected in Chinese lung cancer patients living in Taichung, Taiwan (Cheng et al. Cancer Res. 2001;61:2799–803). Thus, we conducted this study to verify whether there was a similar hpv 16/18 infection prevalence in lung cancer patients from Wuhan, China. Methods: To reduce the false positive hpv detection, the paraffin sections of 73 lung tumors and 34 non-cancer controls from Wuhan, China were collected for detection of the presence of hpv 16/18 DNA by in situ hybridization (ISH). Results: Our results showed that the rates of hpv 16 and/or 18 infections in patients with lung tumors were significantly higher than in 34 non-cancer control subjects (26.0 versus 2.8% for hpv 16, P = 0.030; 23.3 versus 5.7% for hpv 18, P = 0.031; 27.7 versus 5.9% for hpv 16 or 18, P = 0.003) with a similar infection frequency of hpv 16 and 18 types in lung tumors. This result indicated that hpv 16/18 infection may be associated with lung cancer development in Chinese patients from Wuhan, China. Further statistical analyses revealed that hpv 16 or 18 infection was not correlated with any clinico-pathological parameter studied, including age, gender, smoking status, tumor type, tumor stage and tumor grades. Interestingly, smoking and male patients had a higher prevalence of hpv 16, although not reaching a statistical significance, compared with non-smoking and female patients, respectively (33.3% for smokers versus 20.0% nonsmokers; 33.3% for male versus 17.6% for female). As compared with the hpv 16/18 infection in Taiwan, Chinese patients with lung cancer from Wuhan had a different hpv 16/18 infection prevalence. Conclusion: Difference in hpv 16/18 infection in lung cancer patients from Wuhan, China and Taichung, Taiwan suggests that hpv 16/18 might play a different role in lung cancer development among Chinese living in different areas.