Cancer Letters

Cancer Letters

Volume 120, Issue 2, 9 December 1997, Pages 217-221
Cancer Letters

Human papillomavirus, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus infections for cervical cancer in Taiwan

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3835(97)00312-1Get rights and content

Abstract

Previously, we had reviewed 43 cases of invasive cancers, adenosquamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma for HPV type infections. With the same cases we extended the investigation to cytomegalovirus (CMV) and herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections. Results show that the prevalence of CMV and HSV infections from these cases of cervical carcinoma was 67 and 76%, respectively, by polymerase chain reaction. The results of the analysis of the association of HPV, CMV and HSV with various clinical characteristics of cervical cancer patients indicated that the correlation between HSV infections and clinical stages of squamous carcinoma was marginally significant (P=0.068). HSV infections seemed to have a higher association with cell keratinization pattern as compared with the other two viral infections.

Introduction

Cervical cancer is the leading malignancy in women in Taiwan, with an annual incidence of 27.24 per 100 000 women [7]. Epidemiological research has long pointed to cancer of the cervix uteri as a sexually transmitted disease [1]. Human papillomaviruses (HPV) have been suggested to play an important role in cervical carcinogenesis [18]. However, there are a number of infectious agents, such as herpes simplex virus (HSV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV), that have been incriminated as causes of cervical cancer with varying degrees of evidence 11, 14. Previously, we had reviewed 43 cases of invasive cancers, including squamous cell carcinoma, adenosquamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma for HPV type infections [3]. In this study, we extended our previous study to an investigation of HSV and CMV infections in these cases and also analyzed the synergistic effects between three viral agents on clinical characteristics.

Section snippets

HSV DNA detection

To detect HSV DNA using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a pair of primers that bracket a 92 base pair (bp) segment of the DNA polymerase gene were used as described by Cao et al. [2]. Their sequences are 5′CATCACCGACCCGGAGAGGGAC and 5′GGGCCAGGCGCTTGTTGGTGTA. These are regions which are identified in the genomes of HSV types 1 and 2 and thus do not discriminate between these virus types. The reaction conditions containing 1 μg sample DNA were performed for 90 s each at 50, 65 and 94°C for

Results

Previously we had identified the prevalence of HPV infections and HPV types [3]. In this study, we extended the examination to CMV and HSV infections from these 42 cases of cervical carcinoma. CMV and HSV DNAs were detected by the PCR method as described in Section 2. Table 1 shows that the prevalence of CMV and HSV infection was 67% (28/42) and 76% (32/42), respectively. To examine mutual relationships between HPV and CMV, or HPV and HSV infections, we calculated odds ratios (ORs) with their

Discussion

From these studies, we determined that the prevalence of CMV and HSV infections from 42 cases of cervical carcinoma was 67 and 76%, respectively, by PCR. Consistently, recent reports have demonstrated that CMV and HSV play a role in the carcinogenesis of cervical carcinoma 8, 11. Recently, there have been some studies which evaluated the role of sexually transmitted agents in cervical neoplasia. Previous studies investigated the presence of antibodies to HSV-2, CMV, Epstein–Barr virus and C.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Health Research Institute (DOH86-HR-608) and the National Science Council (NSC 86-2314-B016-052), Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.

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