The Association between Human Papillomavirus Infection and Smoking, Age, Gender in Lung Cancer Patients: A Meta-Analysis

Background: The aim of our study was to identify the association between Human papillomavirus (HPV) posi-tive rate and smoking in lung cancer (LC) patients. Meanwhile, to analyze differences among gender, age differ-ences on HPV infection rate in LC patients. Methods: We performed a systematic literature search through PubMed, Wan Fang, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), MEDLINE, EMBASE (OVID), and Web of Science databases from 1991-2017, and we searched these keywords such as “lung cancer”, “HPV”, “smoking”, and “human papillomavirus”. Review Manager 5.3 software was used to analyze. An estimate of the odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) was calculated. Results: In China, a statistical significance was observed between HPV positive rate and smoking in LC pa-tients (OR=2.34, 95%CI: 1.76–3.09, P 0.001; I2 =25%). However, after stratified by region, no significance was observed in other regions, gender, and age. Conclusion: HPV infections are associated with smoking in LC patients. The association between HPV infec-tion and smoking in LC patients may relate to different regions. There were no differences between gender and age among HPV infection rates in LC patients. To identify the etiology of smoking, HPV, and LC, a further experimental research needs to be conducted.