Human papilloma virus identification in breast cancer patients with previous cervical neoplasia

James S. Lawson*, Wendy K. Glenn, Daria Salyakina, Rosemary Clay, Warick Delprado, Bharathi Cheerala, Dinh D. Tran, Christopher C. Ngan, Shingo Miyauchi, Martha Karim, Annika Antonsson, Noel J. Whitaker

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Purpose: Women with human papilloma virus (HPV)-associated cervical neoplasia have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than the general female population. The purpose of this study was to (i) identify high-risk HPVs in cervical neoplasia and subsequent HPV positive breast cancers which developed in the same patients and (ii) determine if these HPVs were biologically active. Methods: A range of polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical techniques were used to conduct a retrospective cohort study of cervical precancers and subsequent breast cancers in the same patients. Results: The same high-risk HPV types were identified in both the cervical and breast specimens in 13 (46%) of 28 patients. HPV type 18 was the most prevalent. HPVs appeared to be biologically active as demonstrated by the expression of HPV E7 proteins and the presence of HPV-associated koilocytes. The average age of these patients diagnosed with breast cancer following prior cervical precancer was 51 years, as compared to 60 years for all women with breast cancer (p for difference = 0.001). Conclusion: These findings indicate that high-risk HPVs can be associated with cervical neoplasia and subsequent young age breast cancer. However, these associations are unusual and are a very small proportion of breast cancers. These outcomes confirm and extend the observations of two similar previous studies and offer one explanation for the increased prevalence of serious invasive breast cancer among young women.

Original languageEnglish
Article number298
Pages (from-to)1-10
Number of pages10
JournalFrontiers in Oncology
Volume5
Issue numberJanuary
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2016. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

  • breast cancer
  • cervical neoplasia
  • human papilloma viruses
  • young age

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