HPV infection and oral carcinogenesis

To the Editor,High risk human papilloma viruses (HPV) have been found in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC), particularly in oropharyngeal carcinomas (1). Nevertheless, there are some controversial aspects regarding this issue (2) such as whether the HPV infec-tion is a temporary or a persistent oral infection in these patients.Recently, Chuang et al. (3) have associated the presence of HPV-16 DNA in surveillance salivary rinses with a significant risk for recurrence in HNSCC.We hypothesized that the improved prognosis of many patients with HPV-related oropharyngeal carcinoma is due to the temporary nature of the infection, and there-fore in the absence of lesions no HPV genomic…