Abstrakt
The purpose of this study was to determine whether changes in human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA prevalence in oral rinses and/or HPV-specific antibody levels in the sera of patients with oral/oropharyngeal cancer have prognostic significance. We enrolled 142 patients with oral/oropharyngeal tumors.
The presence of HPV DNA was assayed in tumor tissue and oral rinses and HPV-specific antibodies were assessed in the sera. Oral rinses and sera were collected before and after the treatment.
Altogether, 59.2% of tumors were HPV positive. The presence of HPV DNA in the tumors correlated with HPV DNA positivity in oral rinses and with HPV-specific antibodies in the sera.
Out of 66 patients with HPV-positive oral rinses at enrolment, 84.8% became negative after the therapy, while most patients remained seropositive for HPV-specific antigens. However, the mean titers of HPV16 E6 and/or E7 antibodies at follow-up were significantly lower.
Of 16 patients with recurrences at follow-up, six were positive at enrolment for HPV16 E6/E7 antibodies. In 5 of these, titers of antibodies specific for HPV16 did not change.
Our data suggest that the detection of antibodies specific for the HPV 16 E6/E7 oncoproteins may serve not only as a marker of HPV etiology, but also as a marker of recurrence and a prognostic indicator in patients with HPV-positive tumors. What's new? Do changes in the amount of HPV DNA detected orally indicate whether cancer will recur? They found that the presence of HPV in the oral rinse correlated with HPV DNA detected in the tumor tissues, but that by one year after treatment, the oral rinse usually came back negative for HPV despite the continuing presence of HPV in the tumor cells.
On the other hand, the authors did find that lingering HPV antibodies in the bloodstream seemed to correlate with tumor recurrence, suggesting that antibody testing could be a good prognostic indicator in patients with HPV-positive tumors.