The pattern of Epstein- Barr virus association in malignant lymphoma

Abstract

EBV status in patients with Classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma, T-Cell Non –Hodgkin’s lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), were investigated to define prognostic impact of Epstein- Barr virus (EBV) infection. A series of 47 cases of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, 20 cases of T-Cell non-Hodgkin‘s lymphoma and 66 cases of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma was analyzed for the presence of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) using EBER in situ hybridization. In situ hybridization showed the presence of EBV in 18 cases of Hodgkin’s lymphoma (38%) and 4 cases of T-Cell Non Hodgkin lymphoma (20%) and 5 cases of DLBCL (8%).The frequency of EBV was strongly associated with Hodgkin lymphoma more than the other type of lymphoma; also I recognized that EBV was strongly associated with Mixed Cellularity Hodgkin lymphoma Subtype, EBV was detected in the Reed Sternberg cells of mixed Cellularity subtype Hodgkin’s disease in 10 of 17 cases (59%) as compared with Nodular Sclerosis histology, in which only 5 of 21 cases (24%) were EBV-associated. Also we can recognize that EBV was shown to be strongly associated with a subset of T-NHL subtypes e.g. NK/T-cell angioimmunoblastic and T-NHL-unspecified. The lowest frequency of EBV are recognized in DLBCL in which EBV associated with only (8%) of all 66 cases.