To study the involvement of HPV infection in the release of macrophage migratory inhibitory factor in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Materials & methods: A total of 100 subjects were enrolled. 50 were oral cavity cancer patients and 50 were oropharyngeal carcinomas. In orophayngeal cancer patients 30 were male and 30 were female whereas in oral cavity cancer patients 33 were male and 17 were female. . Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software and results were obtained. A p ≤ 0.05 was considered to indicate a statistically significant difference.Results: There is no statistical correlations between MIF expression and gender, histological grade recurrence rate and risk factors including HPV status . A staining intensity analysis demonstrated that oropharyngeal and oral cavity cancer tissues infected with transcriptionally active HPV (p16+) showed a decrease in MIF expression compared to oropharyngeal and oral cavity cancer tissues not infected by HPV (n = 25 and n = 30 respectively) p = 0.001 and p = 0.004 respectively. Under hypoxia, HPV-positive cell lines did not secrete significantly more MIF than they did under normoxia.Conclusion: There is decrease in MIF expression as comparing both the cases infected with HPV and not infected with HPV.

MIF, HPV, cancer, head and neck