Is immunohistochemical evaluation of p16 in oropharyngeal cancer enough to predict the HPV positivity?

AimOur goal was to determine the expression levels of p16 in the cohort of the OPSCC patients and evaluation of the pathological and clinical differences between these two groups including patients’ survival.BackgroundHPV infection is the main causative factor of oropharyngeal cancer (OPSCC). Identification of HPV status in OPSCC requires positive evaluation of viral DNA integration into host cell however, p16 accumulation in the proliferating cell layers has been accepted as an alternative marker for HPV infection.Material and MethodsThe IHC staining for p16 has been performed in tumor tissue from 382 OPSCC patients. The sample was considered positive based on more than 70% of carcinoma tissue showing strong and diffused nuclear and cytoplasmic immunostaining. The clinicopathological characteristics of the patients including site, age, gender, tumor grade, tumor stage, the nodal status, smoking and survival have been analyzed when comparing p16 positive and p16 negative tumors.ResultsOut of our cohort in 38.2% cases positive staining for p16 has been recorded. Our analysis did not indicate significant differences in the distribution of the p16 positive patients and age of the patients, stage of the disease. Among the patients who have presented with the N+ neck, there were significantly more p16 positive tumors than in the group with N0 neck (p[[ce:hsp sp="0.25"/]]=[[ce:hsp sp="0.25"/]]0.0062). There was highly significant correlation between the expression of p16 and smoking (p[[ce:hsp sp="0.25"/]