Abstract

PURPOSE
It's well known that the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with endemic Burkitt's lymphoma and B cell lymphomas in immunocompromised individuals, and undifferentiated carcinoma of the nasopharynx. A clonotypic proliferation of EBV has been demonstrated in the neoplastic cells of these malignancies, suggesting a causative role of EBV in the tumorigenesis. More recently, it was identified that EBV has been linked to Hodgkin's disease and B or T-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLs) without preexisting immunodeficiency. MATERIAL AND METHOD: To determine the immunophenotype and incidence of EBV infection in sporadic NHLs of Korea, We investigated 90 cases of NHLs through immunohistochemistry and polymerase chain reaction, respectively.
RESULTS
Sixty-nine of 90 (77%) of NHLs are of B-cell type, 18 of 90 (20%) of NHLs are of T-cell type and 3 out of 90 (3%) of NHLs are undefined lineage by immunohistochemistry. EBV genome was detected in 7 out of 69 (10%) B-cell lymphomas, 5 out of 18 (28%) T-cell lymphomas and 1 out of 3 (33%) non-B and non-T cell lymphomas by polymerase chain reaction. The male/female ratio of EBV-positive NHLs was 2.25:1. There are no prominent differences in age distribution and tumor localization between EBV- positive groups and negative groups.
CONCLUSION
EBV positivity in T-cell NHLs is rather higher than in B-cell NHLs and this finding suggests that there is inter-relation association between EBV and T-cell NHLs, although the exact nature of this association remains to be established.