Investigation of human papilloma virus in patients with prediagnosis of breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in women all over the world and in our country. HPV has been implicated in the etiology of many cancer types, and primarily of cervical cancer. Studies show that the prevalence of HPV in breast cancer varies between 1.6-86.2% around the world. This study aimed to investigate the presence of HPV in breast biopsy samples of patients with malignant and benign breast lesions and to assess whether there is a relationship between HPV and breast cancer. Using real time PCR, we investigated 116 breast cancer and 63 benign breast lesion fresh tissue samples taken by tru-cut biopsy in the Radiodiagnostics Department of Manisa Celal Bayar University Faculty of Medicine, in order to detect the existence of HPV DNA and to type HPV 16, 18 and other 12 types of high-risk HPVs as a pool. While a positive HPV result was detected in one (0.86%) of 116 breast cancer tissues, the HPV result was positive in one (1.58%) of 63 control samples consisting of benign lesions; this difference was not statistically significant (p=1.000). The histopathological result of cancerous breast tissue was detected as invasive papillary carcinoma with the presence of HPV 16, while the histopathological result of the benign sample was determined as granulomatous mastitis and other high-risk HPV. The mean age of patients with breast cancer was significantly higher (p<0.001). In this study, we found no relationship between HPV and breast cancer. We found that the risk of cancer increases with age. In addition, there is no previous study in the literature showing the presence of high-risk HPV in granulomatous mastitis, and our study is the first to report this data. Today, therole of HPV in the etiology of breast canceris still controversial. Further epidemiological and experimental studies are needed to clarify whether HPV contributes to breast cancer development and progression. Furthermore, these studies should be supported by studies examining the role of HPV in benign breast lesions. Key words: HPV, breast cancer, PCR, etiology