Uropathology
Manish Shetty; Deepa Sowkur Anandarama Adiga; Chaithra GV
Abstract
Background & Objective: Penile squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is an extremely rare malignancy. It is usually caused by chronic human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 and HPV 18 infections. This study was conducted to investigate the immunohistochemical overexpression of p16, a surrogate marker for HPV, and ...
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Background & Objective: Penile squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is an extremely rare malignancy. It is usually caused by chronic human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 and HPV 18 infections. This study was conducted to investigate the immunohistochemical overexpression of p16, a surrogate marker for HPV, and to evaluate its usefulness as a potential diagnostic biomarker.Methods: In this cross-sectional prospective and retrospective cohort study, 56 penile squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) specimens and five penile premalignant specimens were evaluated in Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, India, from January 2013- December 2018 in terms of clinical and histopathological features. Immunohistochemical expression for p16 in cases and controls was evaluated. Statistical comparison of p16 expression among clinical features, histological subtype, grade, and stages of tumor were done.Results: Analysis of the pattern of p16 staining showed diffuse and strong nuclear and cytoplasmic expression in 32.8% of cases. There was a highly significant association (P<0.001) of pattern of p16 expression among the HPV and non-HPV subtypes of penile carcinoma. p16 expression was not significantly associated with other prognostic parameters like the site of lesion, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, histologic grade, and pathologic stage.Conclusion: The expression of p16 would be a useful tool in the discrimination between the HPV-associated and non-HPV-associated subtypes of penile SCC that helps to predict the aggressiveness and invasive potential of the respective histologic subtypes.
