Detection Of Human Papillomavirus Using Polymerase Chain Reaction Methods In Transitional Urothelial Bladder Cancer

Aim: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the role of low- and high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) types in the etiology of different stages of transitional urothelial bladder carcinoma (TUBC).Materials and Methods: The medical records of 212 patients operated between 2009 and 2014 were analyzed retrospectively. One hundred thirteen patients with TUBC who underwent transurethral resection and partial/total cystectomy with a diagnosis of bladder cancer were reviewed and compared with 99 control patients with non-neoplastic disorders. Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded archival tissue samples were used for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction. Specimens were analyzed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with HPV-specific general primers set for the detection of viral DNA. PCR-positive samples were also tested using HPV type-specific primers with the same method. The presence of HPV was evaluated using MolecuTech REBA HPV-ID.Results: The median ages of the patients in the cancer and control groups were 68.5 (24-89) and 63.5 (28-83), respectively. None of the control patients exhibited HPV-DNA positivity. However, HPV-DNA positivity was observed in four patients (3.5%) in the cancer group. HPV types 6 and 84 are regarded as low risk, and 53 and 66 as high risk. There was no correlation between HPV infection and tumor development (x2 df(1)=3.572, p=0.125). No statistically significant relationship was observed between HPV-DNA positivity and tumor grade. However, a statistically significant association was determined between smoking and the development of bladder cancer (p<0.001).Discussion: Our study findings indicate a low prevalence of HPV infection in FFPE bladder cancers, and suggest that HPV infections are unlikely to play a major role in the development of TUBC.