Prevalence of Human Papilloma virus in potentially malignant oral disorders is a risk factor for development of early dysplasia-A cytological investigation.

OBJECTIVE

The proposed study was planned to screen Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) status in potentially malignant oral disorders (PMOD) and correlated HPV positivity with cytological changes in oral smears.

METHODS

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at University of Health Sciences Lahore, Pakistan from April 2020 to April 2021. Oral smears from N=162 patients with PMODs were taken by the Cytobrush and Manual Liquid Based Cytology was performed followed by p16 antibody detection on immunohistochemistry and HPV-DNA detection by conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The cytological changes were categorized according to the updated Bethesda Classification system 2014. SPSS was used to analyze data and p-Value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

RESULTS

Out of total N = 162 patients, the most prevalent lesion [39% (n=63)] was lichen planus. Fifty six percent (n=90) of the patients were habitual chewers and 43% (n=70) were smokers. Pap staining of oral smears revealed atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) in 45% (n=69) cases and in 2 % (n=4) of the samples diagnosis of atypical squamous cells-cannot exclude high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (ASC-H) was made. A total of 37% cases showed HPV positivity by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) while positive p16 expression was observed in 24% of the cases. ASC-H and ASCUS category showed significant association with HPV positivity (p=0.003).

CONCLUSION

Early detection of PMODs by adopting minimally invasive cytological techniques and screening for HPV infection in local population is pivotal to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with the advanced disease and carcinoma.