Viral co-infection of oncogenic Human papillomavirus with Epstein–Barr Virus, Human herpesvirus 8 and Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 in malignant cervical cancer

Abstract Cervical cancer is considered the fourth most common malignancy and the fifth fatal cancer in women, oncogenic Human papillomavirus are considered a primary cause of development of cervical cancer. It has also been suggested that viral coexistence may also accelerate the progression of cervical lesions to cervical cancer. This study aims to study the coinfection of Epstein Bar, Herpesvirus 8 and Hepes simplex type 2 infections in women with cervical cancer with the presence of Human papillomavirus and their correlations with the clinicopathologic characteristics of patients. In this study, 73 samples that tested positive for Human papillomavirus in previous study were used for the detection of Epstein Bar, Herpesvirus 8 and Hepes simplex type 2 in tumor tissue using Polymerase Chain Reaction techniques, and the clinical relevance was analyzed statistically. Of the 73 samples (48%) were infected with Epstein Bar, (24.65%) infected with Herpesvirus 8 However, none of the cases were infected with Hepes simplex type 2. The frequency of co-infections was 16.43% of cases. No significant association was found between co-infection and other clinicopathologic features. Therefore, these results represent arguments in favor of the role of Epstein Bar and Herpesvirus 8 among Human papillomavirus positive cases, as potential cofactors in cervical carcinogenesis, which could lead us to develop new therapeutics and preventive vaccines.