Introduction: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is associated with more human cancers than any other virus. Many studies have investigated the association between bladder cancer and HPV but the results remain controversial. The aim of the present study is to evaluate whether HPV have an etiological role in bladder carcinogenesis among Moroccan patients.
Methodology: Forty-eight fresh biopsies (43 bladder tumors and 5 non-tumor samples) were collected for this purpose. Nested PCR with the consensus MY09/MY11 and GP5+/GP6+ primers was performed to detect the presence of HPV L1 gene DNA.
Results: The results showed that 52.4% of bladder cancer patients were positive for HPV. Subsequent DNA sequencing of positive cases of HPV revealed the presence of HPV16 in 95.5% of bladder tumor samples. The occurrence of HPV infection varies according to clinicopathological features, but there is no significant correlation between the viral infection and tumor stage or grade. In addition, statistical analysis demonstrated that there is no association between age or sex and HPV infection.
Conclusion: Our data indicate for the first time that bladder tumors from Moroccan patients harbor HR-HPV genotypes, especially HPV16, and thereby suggest that this virus may play a causative role in bladder cancer.