Prevalence of human papillomavirus types, viral load and physical status of HPV16 in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma from the South Swedish Health Care Region.

Incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is rising in several countries. Intriguingly, large variations of HPV16 viral load and different proportions of the physical viral status among HNSCC have been reported. We analysed fresh biopsies of 275 HNSCC patients from the South Swedish Health Care Region for HPV types with modified general primer PCR and Luminex.