This research article discusses association of human papillomavirus (HPV)

with breast cancer. 107 paraffin embedded blocks samples were used (67 breast
cancer and 40 non-malignant disease samples). After DNA isolation polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect HPV DNA. Only 3 out of 67 (4.47%) breast
cancer samples have shown positivity for HPV DNA. HPV-6 and HPV-31 DNA were
detected in 1 lobular carcinoma. Other 2 ductal carcinoma samples HPV-16, HPV-
35, HPV -18 and HPV-31 DNA detected respectively. Authors have reported low
frequency of HPV DNA in breast cancer tissue and came to conclusion that their
finding does not support HPV as a relevant aetiological factor for the population they
studied.

The rationale behind this study is to disprove or approve association of HPV with
breast cancer. There are contradictory reports on this subject; some have claimed
HPV DNA being detected in breast cancer. However, others have failed to detect
any HPV DNA in breast cancer studies. This raised the question whether to
investigate further these reports. As we know HPV is well established aetiological
cause of cervical cancer. There are vaccines available to prevent HPV causing
cervical cancer. If the link between HPV and breast cancer is proven then these
vaccines could be used or modified to prevent breast cancer development.

There are some important limitations and strength in this study. One limitation is the
number of samples used was insignificant. It is very difficult to reduce error occurring
when sample used for experimental research is small therefore; it is more likely
unwanted error being introduced in the process. Also the method used polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) is contamination prove procedure. You cannot be 100%
percent certain that the HPV DNA detect is from original breast samples. It could be
introduce during the experiment from other sources. Moreover, the author’s used
primers CPΙ & CPΙΙG which target the E1 gene this may be in a region conserved for
99% of the most common HPV subtypes but if other 1% is present it could be easy
miss. 6% polyacrylamide electrophoresis can only detect DNA oligonucleotides of
100 bp or less. However this study has some good strength first of all control group
(40 non-malignant disease samples) was used to make comparison with breast
cancer group. Also good standard of laboratory procedure was used negative and
positive controls were included.
Based on these results discussions and conclusion on this paper cannot be justified.
Because as we mentioned above, there are short comes in this experiment, which
could have affected the results significantly. Therefore more systemic approach is
need to gather reliable data.

Mendizabal-Ruiz.A.P,Morales.J.A,Ramirez-Jirano.L.J,Padilla-Rose.M,Moran-
Moguel.M.C and Montoya-Fuentes.H. (2009). Low frequency of human papilloma-
virus DNA in breast. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 144:189-194.