OBJECTIVETo analyze the relationship between the prognosis of patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in OSCC.

METHODSSixty-six patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma who met the enrollment criteria during the period from January 1999 to December 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. The presence or absence of HPV oncogenic types in OSCC specimen was determined by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Overall survival (OS) and disease specific survival (DSS) for HPV-positive and HPV-negative patients were estimated by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox regression model was used for multivariate analysis.

RESULTSHPV-DNA was detected in 11(16.7%) of all specimens. Among them, 7 were positive for HPV-16, 1 for HPV-16/11, 1 for HPV-35, 1 for HPV-58/52, and 1 for HPV-33/52/54. With the follow-up of 3-78 months (a median of 24.5 months), patients with HPV-positive tumors had significantly better overall survival (χ2=5.792, P=0.016) and disease specific survival (χ2=4.721, P=0.030), the 3-year OS and DSS were 90.0% vs 52.4% and 90.0% vs 56.4%, respectively. Multivariate analysis by Cox regression model showed that HPV infection and nodal status were both independent prognostic factors for patients with OSCC (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONSPatients with HPV-positive OSCC have significantly better prognosis than patients with HPV-negative tumors. HPV infection is an independent prognostic factor.