Detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) in malignant melanoma

The most common type of melanoma is cutaneous melanoma (CM). The predominant mutational signature is that of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) molecular classification includes four major subtypes of CM based on common genetic alterations involving the following genes: BRAF, NRAS, and NF1, with a small fraction being “triple” wild-type. The two main signaling pathway abnormalities in CM are the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway and the phosphoinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) pathway. Other less common types include mucosal melanomas (MM) and uveal melanoma (UM), which have a significantly different genomic landscape. Although few studies reported rare cases with HPV-positive (HPV+) melanoma, the clinicopathological and molecular characteristic of this entity has not been well-described. Among the 2084 melanoma cases queried at our institution, we identified seven patients diagnosed with HPV+ melanoma (prevalence 0.03 %), including five instances of CM and two of MM. The majority of cases were positive for HPV16 (n = 6). Most of the patients were elderly and with advanced disease (n = 6), although this finding may be attributed to the relative frequency of our institution testing advanced-stage tumors. Histologically, most cases showed high degree of pleomorphism and high mitotic count (5 or more mitoses/mm²) (n = 6). UVR signature was present in the CM, but not in the MM cases. Alterations in either MAPK and/or PI3K pathways were detected in the majority of cases (n = 6). The most common genetic abnormalities detected in this study occurred in the TERT promoter (TERTp) (n = 5), a finding that has been reported to be associated with aggressive disease. Our data shows that while HPV+ melanoma is rare, identifying this disease entity could help guide therapy given the demonstrated genomic alterations.