Prevalence of cutaneous viral infections in incident cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma detected among chronic lymphocytic leukemia and hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients

Abstract

The role of cutaneous viral infections in the development of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), including cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), among chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and blood and marrow transplant (BMT) patients is not established. CLL (n = 977) and BMT (n = 3587) patients treated at the Moffitt Cancer Center were included in a retrospective cohort study. Human papillomavirus (HPV) and human polyomavirus (HPyV) DNA were examined in a subset of incident SCC tumors. Five-year cumulative incidence of NMSC was 1.42% in both BMT (n = 31 NMSCs) and CLL (n = 18 NMSCs) cohorts. Of the nine SCC tumors examined from each cohort, 22.2% and 33.3% were positive for viral DNA in the transplant (HPV 65, MCV) and CLL (HPV 38, HPV 15, HPyV6) cohort, respectively. Enhanced skin cancer screening of BMT/CLL patients should be conducted to better capture incident NMSCs and examine the role of viral infections in these tumors.

Keywords:

• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
• bone marrow transplant
• squamous cell carcinoma
• HPV
• polyomavirus

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Center for Infection Research in Cancer, Moffitt Cancer Center (Pilot study grant awarded to Dr. Dana Rollison). This work was also supported in part by the Tissue Core and the Collaborative Data Services Core at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center (P30-CA076292). DER designed and supervised the research study, reviewed the manuscript; SSH conducted the analyses and wrote the manuscript; FLL, JCC, NSP, and ARG reviewed the manuscript; TG and MT conducted HPV DNA assays and reviewed manuscript; KM conducted preliminary analyses and reviewed the manuscript.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10428194.2017.1342822.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Center for Infection Research in Cancer, Moffitt Cancer Center (Pilot study grant awarded to Dr. Dana Rollison). This work was also supported in part by the Tissue Core and the Collaborative Data Services Core at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center (P30-CA076292).