Antibody Against HPV Protein a Potential Biomarker for Oropharynx Cancer

Antibodies against the human papillomavirus (HPV) E6 protein were identified in the blood of individuals who developed oropharynx cancer as long as 10 years before onset of the disease.

Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) infection has been linked to an increasing number of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States and Europe. The aim of a study conducted by investigators at the [US] National Institutes of Health (Rockville, MD, USA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Lyon, France) was to determine whether HPV antibodies were associated with head and neck cancer risk when measured in prediagnostic sera.


The investigators analyzed serum samples collected from some of the more than 500,000 healthy adults in 10 European countries who participated in the long-term European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study. From this large pool of individuals the investigators identified 638 participants with incident head and neck cancers (180 oral cancers, 135 oropharynx cancers, and 247 hypopharynx/larynx cancers) and 300 patients with esophageal cancers as well as 1,599 comparable controls.

Prediagnostic plasma samples from patients (collected, on average, six years before diagnosis) and control participants were analyzed for antibodies against multiple proteins of HPV16 as well as HPV6, HPV11, HPV18, HPV31, HPV33, HPV45, and HPV52. Results of the analysis revealed antibodies against the HPV16 E6 protein in 35% of the individuals with cancer, compared to less than 1% of the samples from the cancer-free individuals. Increased risk of oropharyngeal cancer among HPV16 E6 seropositive participants was independent of time between blood collection and cancer diagnosis and was observed, in some cases, more than 10 years before diagnosis.

“Our study shows not only that the E6 antibodies are present prior to diagnosis—but that in many cases, the antibodies are there more than a decade before the cancer was clinically detectable, an important feature of a successful screening biomarker,” said first author Dr. Aimee R. Kreimer, a cancer epidemiology and genetic researcher at the [US] National Institutes of Health.

If the predictive capability of the HPV16 E6 antibody holds up in other studies, they investigator will consider developing a screening tool based on this result.

The study was published in the June 17, 2013, online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Related Links:
[US] National Institutes of Health
International Agency for Research on Cancer