Abstract:

Objective To investigate the relationship between human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and expression of hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in tissues of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and explore its clinical significance. Methods The infection of HPV6/11, 16/18, 31/33 was examined by in situ hybridization in 43 samples of HNSCC, and the expression of HIF-1α and VEGF was determined by immunohistochemistry method. Spearman method was employed for rank correlation analysis, overall survival of patients was calculated by Kaplan-Meier method, and Cox regression model was used for multivariate analysis. Results In the 43 cases of HNSCC, the positive infection rate of HPV was 25.6%, and the positive expression rates of HIF-1α and VEGF were 65.1% and 51.2% respectively. The expression of HIF-1α was related to T stage, N stage and clinical stage （P＜0.05）, and the expression of VEGF was related to N stage and recurrence （P＜0.05）. The expression of HIF-1α was positively related with the expression of VEGF （r=0.359, P＜0.05）. There was no significant difference in the expression of HIF-1α and VEGF between HPV positive group and HPV negative group （P＞0.05）. The 3-year overall survival rates of HPV positive group and HPV negative group were 60.0% and 59.7% respectively （P＞0.05）, those of HIF-1α positive expression group and HIF-1α negative expression group were 49.9% and 80.0% respectively （P=0.06）, and those of VEGF positive expression group and VEGF negative expression group were 41.2% and 81.0% respectively （P＜0.05）. Conclusion HIF-1α and VEGF may be considered as parameters in evaluation of progression, metastasis and prognosis of HNSCC, and the correlation between HPV infection and expression of HIF-1α and VEGF in tissues of HNSCC is undetermined.

Key words: head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, human papillomavirus, hypoxia inducible factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, prognosis