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. 2015 Jun 30;113(1):131-4.
doi: 10.1038/bjc.2015.198. Epub 2015 Jun 4.

Increasing incidence of base of tongue cancers from 2000 to 2010 due to HPV: the largest demographic study of 210 Danish patients

E Garnaes  1 , K Kiss  2 , L Andersen  3 , M H Therkildsen  2 , M B Franzmann  4 , B Filtenborg-Barnkob  5 , E Hoegdall  6 , C B Lajer  1 , E Andersen  7 , L Specht  8 , L Joenson  9 , K Frederiksen  10 , L Friis-Hansen  9 , F C Nielsen  9 , S K Kjaer  11 , B Norrild  12 , C von Buchwald  1
Affiliations

Increasing incidence of base of tongue cancers from 2000 to 2010 due to HPV: the largest demographic study of 210 Danish patients

E Garnaes et al. Br J Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: We assessed the development in the number of new base of tongue squamous-cell carcinoma (BSCC) cases per year in eastern Denmark from 2000 to 2010 and whether HPV may explain any observable increased incidence.

Methods: We performed HPV DNA PCR and p16 immunohistochemistry analysis for all (n=210) BSCCs registered in the Danish Head and Neck Cancer Group (DAHANCA) and the Danish Pathology Data Bank, and genotyped all HPV-positive specimens with amplicon-based next-generation sequencing.

Results: The overall crude incidence of BSCCs increased significantly (5.4% per year) during the study period. This was explained by a significant increase in the number of HPV-positive BSCCs (8.1% per year), whereas the number of HPV-negative BSCCs did not increase significantly. The overall HPV prevalence was 51%, with HPV16 as the predominant HPV type.

Conclusions: The increased number of HPV-positive BSCCs may explain the increasing incidence of BSCCs in eastern Denmark, 2000-2010.

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Conflict of interest statement

EG and CvB received research funding from Sanofi Pasteur MSD (unrestricted grant, 2012). EH received compensation for travel expenses to ASCO from Roche. CBL has received a fee for a lecture from Sanofi Pasteur MSD. LS has a consulting role and has received research funding from Takeda, Merck Serono and Boeringer Ingelheim. SKK received lecture fees, scientific advisory board fees and unrestricted institutional research grants from Merck and Sanofi Pasteur MSD. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of exclusions and final study population. Excluded patients are indicated as number of patients (n) and percentage of total.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of total BSCCs according to HPV status. The black circles represent the total number of BSCCs per year; the black line is an estimated regression line showing a significant increase in the number of patients with BSCC (5.4% per year). The red squares represent the number of patients with HPV-positive BSCCs per year; the red line is an estimated regression line showing a significant increase in the number of patients with HPV-positive BSCCs (8.1% per year). The green triangles represent the number of patients with HPV-negative BSCCs per year; the green line is an estimated regression line showing no significant increase in the number of patients with HPV-negative BSCCs (2.7% per year). Abbreviations: APC=annual percentage change; CI=confidence interval.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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