The Frequency of Human Papillomaviruses and Epstein-Barr Virus in Colorectal Cancer Samples in Algeria

Environmental factors may play a role in colon cancer. In this view, several studies investigated tumor samples for the presence of various viral DNA with conflicting results. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in patients with colorectal carcinomas.

In this study, we collected 74 tumorous paraffin-embedded tissues (Mean±SD age: 66.3±14.98) from the Pathology Department of a hospital in AinTemouchent and laboratories of pathological anatomy in western Algeria. DNA from each tissue was extracted and the presence of HPV and EBV was investigated using PCR.

None of our samples were HPV or EBV positive, and we failed to find an obvious correlation between EBV and HPV infections and this type of cancer.

The results suggested that EBV and HPV infection is not common in patients with colorectal cancer in our population. However, the findings merit more investigations on a large number of cases.