Prevalência de HPV na saliva da população da clínica dentária universitária da UCP-Viseu

Abstract

Introduction: The human papillomaviruses (HPV) are a family of non-enveloped DNA viruses, mainly associated with cervical cancers. However, there are epidemiologic data that suggest its role as a risk factor in the development of oropharyngeal cancers, not only as a modulator of the malignancy process in oropharyngeal tumors induced by alcohol and tobacco but also as a primary oncogenic factor in the carcinogenesis induction among non smokers and non alcoholic. More oral HPV prevalence studies in healthy individuals are needed in order to investigate the potential oncogenic risk of this virus as well as to acknowledge its distribution and diversity in the general population. Thus, the goal of this study was to perform an HPV screening in healthy adults to assess oral HPV prevalence in the University Dentistry Clinic patients. Methods: 40 healthy patients of the UCP-Viseu University Dental Clinic were selected and submitted to saliva and lateral borders of the tongue epithelium collection. DNA was then isolated from the saliva samples and screened for HPV 6, 11, 16 and 18 through PCR. The obtained fragments were sequenced in order to confirm the virus presence and to determine to what type of HPV they belong to. Results: Some of the collected samples revealed the presence of amplified fragments suspects of possibly corresponding to HPV presence in the saliva. However, in the sequencing reactions non-specific sequences were obtained whereby this virus presence in the analyzed population was not confirmed. Therefore the oral HPV prevalence in the studied sample is 0%. Conclusions: The obtained results provide new information about the oral HPV status in a previously non-screened area for this virus prevalence, which is extremely important public health wise. The obtained data seems to indicate that the prevalence of the virus in the population is lower than in other populations although the sample may not be representative of the population as only 40 samples were analyzed and consequently these results should be considered preliminary and the conclusions supported by further studies with larger sample size. Considering HPV involvement in oropharyngeal cancer etiology, it becomes relevant to perform more oral HPV epidemiological studies.

Date of Award	2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria José Correia (Supervisor)