Correlation of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and infections with either HHV-8 or HPV-16/18

Each year more than 159,000 new cases of laryngeal cancer are diagnosed globally, and more than 9000 patients die due to this malignancy. Viral infections are a known risk factor for this malignancy. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the role of HPV-16/18 and HHV-8 infection in patients with laryngeal cancer.In this case–control study, 60 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples of laryngeal cancer and 22 normal larynx tissue samples from the Pathology Department of Qaem Hospital, Mashhad, Iran were studied. After validating the diagnosis, the samples were evaluated for the detection of HPV-16/18 and HHV-8 DNA using PCR technique. The data were registered and analyzed using SPSS 18.0.The average age for patients and controls was 61.29 ± 11.89 and 55.77 ± 10.10, respectively. Fifty-four patients (90%) and 16 (72.7%) controls were male. PCR results detected no HPV-16/18 DNA in both groups. Although there were 2 positive HHV-8 samples in both laryngeal cancer and normal larynx samples, no significant relation was present (p = 0.291).We found no significant relationship between infection with HHV-8 or HPV-16/18 and the existence of laryngeal cancer. However, more complementary studies are required to re-evaluate our results using more samples and better viral detection techniques.