Failure to detect human papilloma virus in cutaneous molluscum contagiosum lesions

In a recently published study, the coexistence of HPV and MCV was demonstrated for the first time in the same molluscum contagiosum lesions from a single patient. Such a finding raises many questions in the understanding of both HPV and MCV. With this finding comes the potential of new treatments against dually infected MC lesions, which normally demonstrate high resistance to therapy. Furthermore, the finding of HPV and MCV coexistence raises questions on the effects of MCV immunosuppressive genes on HPV. For these reasons, further analysis was performed on a larger series of MC specimens for the rates of HPV and MCV coinfection within the same lesions. This study differed from the previous one on this subject in its use of cutaneous, rather than mucosal, lesions. The methods used in this study were identical to those which were previously employed; in situ hybridization was utilized using HPV probes, and was followed by histologic examination with hematoxylin-eosin stain. The results of this study did not identify coexistence of HPV and MCV in any of the collected MC specimens. These findings are in contrast to the previous study and suggest that, although HPV and MCV coexistence may occur, such coinfections are extremely rare in cutaneous tissue.