Abstract:
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection. High-risk
HPV (HR-HPV) strains-induced infections are associated with invasive cancer development,
especially cervical cancer. HPV infections have a strong correlation with the emergence of
other malignancies, including that of the oesophageal, vulva, vagina, penis, or anus. Since
HPV-related renal cell malignancy is still controversial possibly due to limited data on the
etiological association of HPV with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) or conflicting research results,
this study was designed to investigate the prevalence of HPV and the risk of developing RCC
with respect to the Pakistani population. The study included 50 healthy individuals and 48 RCC
patients. The demographic data of the participants were collected with their informed consent.
Blood samples from healthy individuals and tissue samples from RCC patients were collected
along with their histopathological reports. DNA was extracted, and HPV testing was performed
via conventional PCR.
This study showed that the ubiquity of RCC is significantly greater in males (63%) as compared
to females (37%). The age of 44% of patients was below 51 years, 40% of patients were
between 51 and 70 years and 16% were between 71-90 years of age. Histologically, clear cell
renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) was the most prevalent type (81%). While papillary renal cell
carcinoma (pRCC) and chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (chrRCC) had 7% and 6% of
prevalence respectively. At Stages II and III, 38% and 33% of the cases were diagnosed
respectively. Whereas, 38% and 31% of the cases were diagnosed at G2 and G1 grades
respectively concluding that RCC is diagnosed at early and intermediate stages. Moreover, the
prevalence of HPV was observed in 10.4% of the total RCC cases. Further confirmation and
establishment of a correlation between HPV and RCC can be attained by increasing the sample size and the implementation of HPV genotype-specific testing, with particular emphasis on
detecting the presence of HR-HPV genotypes, notably HPV-16, & -18.
