The impact of a polymorphism of the wild-type human tumour suppressor gene p53(wt) on carcinogenesis is subject of controversy ever since a higher susceptibility of p53 to HPV-E6 mediated degradation when encoding for Arginine at codon 72 (p53Arg) was first reported. The issue remained unclear because various studies investigating this question for different tumour entities and different geographical regions demonstrated diverging results. In the present study, the HPV status and p53 genotype frequency of 42 head and neck cancers was analysed and compared to results reported in the recent literature. Applying PCR and cycle sequencing techniques, HPV DNA was demonstrated in 12/42 (29%) of the cases and the overall distribution of the p53 allele was: 64, 31 and 5% for p53Arg, p53Arg/Pro and p53Pro, respectively. There was no statistically significant association between HPV status and p53 genotype distribution. The results of our study and of the reviewed literature do not support a relevant role of the p53 polymorphism in head and neck carcinogenesis, either taken alone or in association with the HPV status.

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