Impact of Viral Infection on Effectiveness of Antitumor Treatment for Laryngeal Cancer

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to assess the infection of tumor tissues with herpesviruses and human papillomavirus (HPV) in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx (SCCL) and to reveal the impact of viral infections of tumor tissues on the effectiveness of neoadjuvant therapy. DNAs of HSV1,2, CMV, EBV and HPV were studied by PCR in 26 samples of tumor tissues. We revealed a high level of herpesvirus infection in SCCL tumor tissues (up to 92.3 %), while HPV infection was less frequent – 19.2 %, including low-risk HPV (LR HPV, 11.5 %) and high-risk HPV (HR HPV, 7.7 %). Significant differences in the detection rates of the studied pathogens were found (p<0.05). EBV was more frequent (73.1 %), and HSV1,2 detection rate was the lowest (7.7 %). The prevalence of herpesvirus presence in tumor tissue in the absence of HPV was detected (p<0.05). The effectiveness of therapy was higher in patients without viral infections, compared to infected patients (100.0 vs. 80.0 %), but the difference was nonsignificant (p>0.05). There was no significant dependence of the chemotherapy effectiveness on the type of infection (p>0.05). However, the presence of LR HPV, HSV1,2 and especially combinations of herpesviruses with HPV in tumor tissues reduced the number of cases of tumor stabilization and regression which is notewor thy and requires fur ther research.