Human papillomavirus infections in a group of renal transplant recipients

SUMMARY One hundred and twenty renal transplant recipients were investigated. Fifty‐eight (48%) were found to have warts, 13(11%) keratoses and six (5%) to have, or recently to have had cancers. The longer the time of immunosuppression, the greater the prevalence of warts; of those patients who had had their transplant for at least 5 years, 87% had warts. Those with a graft survival time of 10 years or more are at special risk of warts, keratoses and malignancy. Five (10%) of 50 women had genital warts, four of whom had internal lesions (vaginal, cervical or anal) and one developed a carcinoma of the vulva. These findings indicate the advisability of colposcopy for all female renal transplant recipients, a high risk group. Eighty‐eight specimens from 42 patients were examined by DNA restriction enzyme analysis and cross hybridization for the presence and type of human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV DNA was detected in 66% of the warts examined, HPV2 and HPV4 occurring most often and HPV1 and HPV3 only infrequently. In sequential specimens from common hand warts of one individual, an HPV was found which could not be precisely identified but was related to HPV4. HPV16 was detected in a vaginal wart from one patient and an HPV6‐related virus in a vulval wart of another. HPV DNA of an unknown type was demonstrated in one of 11 keratoses examined. With the probes used to examine the few samples of skin cancers available, HPV 16 was found in a squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva, and faint bands from an unidentified type of HPV were detected in two squamous cell carcinomata from a patient's hand. One woman had plaque lesions morphologically and histologically resembling those found in epidermodysplasia verruciformis (EV). HPV5 was identified in these lesions. This is only the third reported case of HPV5, previously thought to be unique to EV, in a renal transplant recipient.