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Review
. 2023 Feb 8;15(4):1096.
doi: 10.3390/cancers15041096.

Oral Human Papillomavirus Benign Lesions and HPV-Related Cancer in Healthy Children: A Systematic Review

Federica Di Spirito  1 , Giuseppe Pantaleo  1 , Maria Pia Di Palo  1 , Alessandra Amato  2 , Annunziata Raimondo  1 , Massimo Amato  1
Affiliations
Review

Oral Human Papillomavirus Benign Lesions and HPV-Related Cancer in Healthy Children: A Systematic Review

Federica Di Spirito et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

The present systematic review aimed to assess the prevalence of oral HPV-related lesions, categorized as benign (verruca vulgaris "VV", squamous cell papilloma "SP", condyloma acuminata "CA", and focal epithelial hyperplasia "FEH") and malignant (oral squamous cell carcinoma "OSCC"), in descending order of occurrence in pediatric subjects (≤18 years of age). The secondary objectives were to evaluate the frequency and types of oral lesions described in relation to HPV genotypes and the HPV vaccine type (if any). The study protocol, compliant with the PRISMA statement, was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42022352268). Data from 60 studies, of which quality was assessed using the ROBINS-I tool, were independently extracted and synthesized. Along with seven poorly described benign HPV-related oral lesions that could not be categorized, a total of 146 HPV-related oral lesions, namely 47.26% (n = 69) VV, SP, and CA, 51.37% (n = 75) FEH, and 1.37% (n = 2) OSSC, were diagnosed in 153 pediatric subjects (M:F ratio = 1:1.4) with a mean age of lesion onset of 8.46 years. The viral genotypes detected were HPV-13 (30.61%), -6 (20.41%), -11 (16.33%), HPV-2 (12.24%), -32 (10.20%), -57 (6.12%), and -16 (4.08%). No HPV vaccination was reported in any case. Further studies should be conducted to evaluate the prevalence of HPV-related benign and malignant lesions and the potential role of HPV and associated vaccination in oral carcinogenesis in pediatric subjects.

Keywords: HPV; adolescent; child; children; condyloma acuminata; focal epithelial hyperplasia; human papillomavirus; infant; oral lesions; oral manifestations; oral signs; oral squamous cell carcinoma; pediatric; squamous cell papilloma; teenager; verruca vulgaris; young.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for electronically and manually retrieved records.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Frequency of reported oral HPV-related lesions in pediatric patients.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Frequency of viral genotypes detected in HPV-related oral lesions in pediatric patients.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Distribution of HPV genotype in relation to the type of oral lesions reported in pediatric patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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