An increasing number of studies have found HPV infection in esophageal carcinoma patients recently. However, reported rates of HPV infection as evidenced were divergent by differences in geographic regions of sample origin.
To detect the HPV status in Huai’an, China, a high-risk area for esophageal cancer (EC), ELISA was used to determine the seropositivity of HPV16/18 in the blood plasma of the high-risk population of Huai’an esophageal cancer. In the high-risk group, 937 volunteers were recruited by cluster sampling from high incident counties for esophageal cancer in Jiangsu during 2009 to 2013. For the patient group, HPV L1 DNA and HPV genotypes were identified in the cancerous tissues of 105 EC patients from the First People's Hospital in Huai’an by nested-PCR and dot blot hybridization.
The results showed that the overall rate of HPV infection in the high-risk group and the patient group was 31.4% and 34.36%, respectively. HPV18/16 covered 77.3% of HPV infection among the high-risk group. In the EC patient group, only HPV18 was detected in cancerous tissues, and the prevalence of infection (24.2%) was integrally higher than most related reports in other areas.
In conclusion, the current study evaluates the prevalence and genotyping of HPV infection in a high-risk population and patients with esophageal cancer in Huai’an, Jiangsu, and HPV18 may be the highest risk subtype of HPV infection in the Jiangsu area.
School of Public Health, Southeast University
The National Science Foundation of China
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.