Prior human polyomavirus and papillomavirus infection and incident lung cancer: a nested case-control study

To test whether infection with select human polyomaviruses (HPyV) and human papillomaviruses (HPV) is associated with incident lung cancer.

We performed a nested case-control study, testing serum from the carotene and retinol efficacy trial, conducted 1985-2005, for antibodies to Merkel cell (MCV), KI (KIV), and WU (WUV) HPyVs as well as to six high-risk and two low-risk HPV types. Incident lung cancer cases (n = 200) were frequency-matched with controls (n = 200) on age, enrollment and blood draw dates, intervention arm assignment, and the number of serum freeze/thaw cycles. Sera were tested using multiplex liquid bead microarray antibody assays. We used logistic regression to assess the association between HPyV and HPV antibodies and lung cancer.

There was no evidence of a positive association between levels of MCV, KIV, or WUV antibodies and incident lung cancer (p corrected >0.10 for all trend tests; odds ratio (OR) range 0.72-1.09, p corrected >0.10 for all). There was also no evidence for a positive association between HPV 16 or 18 infection and incident lung cancer (p corrected ≥0.10 for all trend tests; OR range 0.25-2.54, p > 0.05 for all OR > 1), but the number of persons with serologic evidence of these infections was small.

Prior infection with any of several types of HPyV or HPV was not associated with subsequent diagnosis of lung cancer. Infection with these viruses likely does not influence a person's risk of lung cancer in Western smoking populations.