The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) types in tissue and HPV
antibodies in
prostatic disease. Prostate tissue samples were collected from 51 patients diagnosed with
adenocarcinoma and 11 with
benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). All tissue samples were confirmed by histology. Plasma samples were available for 52 prostate patients. We investigated HPV
DNA prevalence by PCR, and PCR positive samples were HPV type determined by sequencing. Prevalence of
antibodies against twenty-seven HPV
proteins from fourteen different HPV types was assessed in the plasma samples. The HPV
DNA prevalence in the tissue samples was 14% (7/51) for
prostate cancer samples and 27% (3/11) for BPHs. HPV-18 was the only type detected in tissue samples (10/62). No significant difference in HPV prevalence between the
prostate cancer and BPH samples was found. HPV-positive cells were identified in eight of our thirteen prostate tissue slides (3/3 BPH and 5/10
adenocarcinoma) by in situ hybridisation, and the positive cells were found in epithelial cells and peripheral blood cells. Serology data showed no significant increase in levels of
antibodies against any of the HPV-18
proteins tested for in
prostatic disease patients.
Antibodies against HPV-1, HPV-4, HPV-6 and HPV-11 were significantly higher in the group of males with
prostatic disease. Our study did not show an association between
prostatic disease and either presence of HPV
DNA in samples or previous exposure of high-risk HPV.