Oropharynx HPV status and its relation to HIV infection

Leonora Maciel de Souza Vianna; Fabiana Pirani Carneiro; Rivadavio Amorim; Eliete Neves da Silva Guerra; Florêncio Figueiredo Cavalcanti Neto; Valdenize Tiziani; Andrea Barretto Motoyama; Anamélia Lorenzetti Bocca

doi:10.7717/peerj.4407

Oropharynx HPV status and its relation to HIV infection

PeerJ. 2018 Mar 22:6:e4407. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4407. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Leonora Maciel de Souza Vianna¹, Fabiana Pirani Carneiro¹, Rivadavio Amorim¹, Eliete Neves da Silva Guerra², Florêncio Figueiredo Cavalcanti Neto¹, Valdenize Tiziani³, Andrea Barretto Motoyama¹, Anamélia Lorenzetti Bocca¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Brasilia (UnB), Brasíla, DF, Brazil.
² Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, University of Brasilia (UnB), Brasilia, DF, Brazil.
³ Center for Learning and Research, Brasilia Children Hospital, Brasilia-DF, DF, Brasil.

Abstract

Background: The number of oropharyngeal lesions caused by HPV (Human papillomavirus) has been increasing worldwide in the past years. In spite of the clinical relevance of HPV infection in the anogenital tract of HIV-positive patients, the relevance of oropharynx HPV infection in these patients is not clear. The aim of the present study was to detect HPV infection, and clinical and cytological changes in the oropharynx of HIV-positive patients.

Methods: Samples collected from the oropharynx of 100 HIV-positive patients were subjected to hybrid capture (HC), conventional and liquid-based cytology. Clinical data were also collected to investigate the relation with HPV status.

Results: High and low-risk types of HPV were present in 8% and 16.7% of the total sample. The mean ± sd (maximum-minimum) of the relative ratio light unit (RLU)/cutoff (CO) was 2.94 ± 2.58 (1.09-7.87) and 1.61 ± 0.65 (1.07-2.8) for high- and low-risk-HPV, respectively. By cytology, dysplasia was not detected, but atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) were diagnosed in two samples. No clinical change, suggestive of dysplasia/cancer, was detected.

Conclusion: Our study was able to detect and characterize HPV infection by hybrid capture, which may represent a good tool for screening and follow-up of HPV in the studied population. The frequency and viral load of HPV were low. Neither clinical nor cytological changes suggestive of dysplasia/neoplasia were observed in oropharynx of HIV-positive patients.

Keywords: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; HIV; Human Papillomavirus; Human Papillomavirus Test; Oropharynx.

Grants and funding

The study was supported by Fundação de Auxílio a Pesquisa do Distrito Federal (FAP-DF, Brazil). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.