• Determining the relationship between HPV virus and the occurrence of malignant or premalignant colorectal lesions: a review study
  • Mahdi Zarei,1,*
    1. Student Research Committee, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran


  • Introduction: Colorectal cancer is the third most common tumor and the fourth cause of mortality caused by cancers; the incidence rate of which in Iran is about 5000 new cases per year. On average, the 5-year survival rate for this malignancy is 64.4%. Human papilloma virus is a DNA virus that infects the cells of the epithelial basal layer and after the integration of the virus DNA into the cell genome, it leads to the over expression of E6 and E7 oncogenes. This ultimately leads to a decrease in the activity of the Rb and P53 genes; and in this way it is associated with mucoepithelial cancers. Considering the high prevalence of HPV infections and colorectal cancer in the country, the aim of this study is to investigate the possible role of HPV in the occurrence of malignant or pre-malignant lesions of the colorectal.
  • Methods: In this study, published articles on the possible role of HPV in colorectal cancer in Iran and the world were reviewed and the results and parameters involved in this topic were evaluated and compared. In this study, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Scopus ,and Google Scholar databases were searched.
  • Results: In order to determine the relationship between HPV and colorectal cancer, it is necessary to be able to detect the genome of the virus in cancerous or precancerous lesions, but not in healthy tissues. Some studies have shown that 14-84% of colorectal cancer cases were positive for HPV DNA, while others did not find a significant relationship between the two. In a study conducted in Turkey, 81.2% of cancer tissues contained HPV genome, however, in the studies conducted in Iran, despite the different findings regarding the presence or absence of HPV genome in biopsies obtained from patients with colorectal cancer, in most studies, there was no significant relationship between the presence or the role of HPV with the occurrence of colorectal cancerous or precancerous lesions .
  • Conclusion: Conclusion: In Iran, despite the different findings regarding the presence or absence of the virus genome in the samples taken from patients; No significant relationship has been found between the presence of HPV and the occurrence of colorectal cancer. It is felt that extensive studies with a sufficient sample size will clarify the dimensions of this issue
  • Keywords: colorectal cancer, HPV, oncogene