Human Papillomavirus Status in Penile Squamous Cell Carcinoma: An Established Biomarker With Unanswered Questions
Menée au Danemark à partir de données portant sur 1 028 échantillons de carcinomes épidermoïdes du pénis diagnostiqués entre 1995 et 2020, cette étude analyse l'évolution de la prévalence de la protéine p16 et de l'ADN de papillomavirus humains à haut risque puis examine la proportion de cas couverts par le vaccin nonavalent
Penile squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC) is a rare but aggressive malignancy whose incidence has been rising across several high-income regions in recent decades. A substantial fraction is attributable to high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV-positive and HPV-negative PSCC differ markedly in tumour biology and in the tumour microenvironment, and most studies report better outcomes for HPV-positive disease—yet the prognostic and therapeutic predictive value of HPV status remains contested and unresolved. Stærk et al. provide a large, high-quality and homogeneous dataset to address these questions: more than one thousand penile SCCs diagnosed in Denmark over 26 years, drawn from the nationwide Danish Pathology Databank with centralised HPV genotyping and blinded expert p16 scoring.
International Journal of Cancer , article en libre accès, 2026