Molecular Detection of Pathogens Causing Sexually Transmissible Infections in Patients with Prostate Cancer and Hyperplasia by Quantitative TaqMan Real-Time PCR Assay

Abstract

Background: Prostate cancer is considered the most prevalent cancer among men. Recent studies suggest that sex-ually transmissible infections (STIs) may be related to prostate carcinogenesis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether STI pathogens (Atopobium vaginae (ATO), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia tra-chomatis (CT), Treponema pallidum (TP), Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU), Gardnerella vaginalis (GV), Herpes Sim-plex Virus (HSV), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Human herpesvirus (HHV), Human papillomavirus (HPV), and Tricho-monas vaginalis (TV)) presence in prostate tissues are associated with the risk of prostate cancer.

Methods: Paraffin-embedded prostate tissues obtained from patients with hyperplasia and prostate cancer were extracted. Determination of infectious microorganisms of interest was done by quantitative TaqMan real-time PCR assay.

Results: STI DNA was detected in 53/243 (21.8%) of the prostate tissues samples (ATO 3.7%, UU 2.88%, GV 2.46%, HSV-2 2.05%, CT 2.05%, CMV 1.64%, NG 1.64%, TP 1.64%, HHV-8 1.23%, HPV 1.23%, and TV 1.23%.) The statistical analysis revealed significant correlation between prevalence of Gardnerella vaginalis (GV) and Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-2) between hyperplasia and cancerous groups (p = 0.02), respectively.

Conclusions: No statistically significant difference was observed in the prevalence of most candidate infectious or-ganisms between hyperplasia and cancerous groups except for GV and HSV-2. It appears that inflammation in the prostate gland is more associated with prostate hyperplasia than prostate cancer. According to the role of in-fectious microorganisms in induction of chronic inflammation, we cannot exclude the importance of these patho-gens in progression of cancer. More studies are required to explore the associations of cancer with different infec-tious organisms.