Human papillomavirus (hpv) in leukoplasia and epidermoid carcinoma of the oral cavity: a systematic review

The main objective of this research was to analyze the frequency of detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) of high oncogenic risk in oral leukoplakias and oral squamous cell carcinoma. This is a systematic review of the literature developed by collecting data from the National Library of Medicine (Medline via PubMed); Elsevier’s Scopus (SCOPUS); Web of Science and Cochrane Library with descriptors indexed in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). The studies were selected by the relevance test and analyzed according to the GRADE system. Four articles were part of this review, three of which from the Web of Science database and one from Elsevier’s Scopus (SCOPUS); all of them with frequency of detection of high oncogenic risk HPV in leukoplakia and squamous cell carcinomas of the oral cavity with analysis regarding the expression of the intracellular protein p-16. The studies have shown the presence of high-risk oncogenic HPV in leukoplakia and oral squamous cell carcinoma with a highly variable frequency of viral detection. The highest frequency was found in carcinomas and leukoplakias with a higher degree of dysplasia, however, more studies are needed of the oncogenic potential of HPV and its synergistic performance with other carcinogens in the development of oral lesions.