Prevalence of Oral Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in Patients with Genital HPV Infections: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background and aims: The relationship between oral-genital infections caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) in men and women is not well studied. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the prevalence of concurrent and concordant oral-genital HPV infection. Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted by selecting 89 articles from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, exclusively searching for English studies published in international journals up to June 2023. The study summarized the percentages of concurrent (presence of any HPV in both oral and genital sites) and concordant (presence of the same types of HPV in both oral and genital sites) oral-genital HPV infections. The quality of these studies was evaluated using the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies (QATQS). Moreover, meta-analysis was done using comprehensive meta-analysis (CMA) software with a random-effects method at a significant level of 0.05. Results: The meta-analysis incorporated a total of 86 articles. Based on QATQS, 83% of these studies achieved ‘Moderate’ ratings. The overall prevalence of concurrent oral-genital HPV infection was 15.5% (95% CI: 11.2–21) in women and 14% (95% CI: 8–23.3) in men. The concordance rate was 41.9% (95% CI: 33.8–50.5) in women and 32.2% (95% CI: 11–64.7) in men. Additionally, the prevalence of genital and oral HPV infections was 61% (95% CI: 21.3–90.6) and 9.5% (95% CI: 7.7–11.7), respectively. Conclusion: This meta-analysis showed that the high prevalence of genital HPV and oral-genital HPV can be a reason for the possibility of self-contamination.