Detection of human papillomaviruses from histologically normal lymph nodes of Japanese cervical cancer patients by nested polymerase chain‐reaction assay

Abstract
To determine the prognostic significance of human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA in histologically normal lymph nodes, we developed a nested polymerase chain‐reaction (PCR) method on HPV16, 18 and 33 DNAs for formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded tissues. We investigated 370 histologically normal lymph nodes from 15 patients treated for stage‐IB/IIB (FIGO) invasive cervical cancer. HPV16 DNA was detected in 7 (47%) and HPV18 DNA in 3 (20%) of the cervical cancers. Examination of histologically normal lymph nodes from these 10 patients by nested PCR revealed HPV DNA in 5 (50%) of them; in all cases HPV type in lymph nodes and tumor was the same. Two of these 5 patients had a recurrence (pelvic cavity or lung) and died of cancer, although all 5 had had pelvic radiotherapy after radical hysterectomy and lymphadenectomy. These findings indicate that nested PCR is useful for evaluating early lymph‐node involvement retrospectively in HPV‐positive cases.