High prevalence of human papillomavirus 16 in penile carcinoma.

In order to analyze the incidence and prevalence of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in penile carcinoma, we studied 49 patients with penile carcinoma. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples were collected from 64 samples of penile carcinoma from the Hospital General Universitario (Albacete, Spain). Cases were histologically classified and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method was used to detect the presence of HPV. Two sets of consensus primers were used, the My09/My11, and the GP5+/GP6+. All positive cases were sequenced in order to establish the implicated genotype. Our results showed that 38 of the 49 cases were positive for HPV (77,5%). HPV16 appeared in 32 (84,2 %) of the 38 positive cases and HPV18 in 4 (10,5%). Our data demonstrate that the My09/My11 primers are more sensitive than GP5+/GP6+ primers, although the combination of the two sets of primers notably increased the total number of HPV positive cases detected.