Brushing of Oral Mucosa for Diagnosis of HPV Infection in Patients with Potentially Malignant and Malignant Oral Lesions

Introduction: Adequate brushing of oral mucosa is important for accurate human papillomavirus (HPV) detection in potentially malignant (oral leukoplakia [OL], oral lichen planus [OLP]) and malignant (oral squamous cell carcinoma [OSCC]) lesions. Since various factors may limit the adequacy of oral brushing and, consequently, the accuracy of HPV detection, modified sampling procedures should be evaluated for their effect on HPV frequency and/or types detected. Aim: To compare the HPV frequency in samples obtained by brushing the lesion site with the frequency in samples obtained by brushing an apparently normal adjacent site. The correlation between HPV frequency and keratinization of the si…