EBV-associated lymphoma in Bahia, Brazil

CASE REPORTS

EBV-associated lymphoma in Bahia, Brazil

Iguaracyra Araujo; Achiléa Bittencourt; Helenemarie S. Barbosa; Tatiana Gil Portugal; Daniel Freitas; Daniela Almeida; Núbia Mendonça; Michael Hummel; Hans-Dieter Foss

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a lymphotropic virus associated with some human malignancies such as endemic Burkitt's lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), AIDS-associated lymphomas. We report the frequency of EBV-infection in pediatric Burkitt's lymphoma (BL), pediatric Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), adulthood HL and AIDS related non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) occurring in Bahia, Brazil. For comparison we described also the frequency of EBV infection in 28 lymphomas not related to HIV-infection and in 40 tonsils from children living in Bahia and 40 from German children. The expression of EBV gene products was studied by in situ hybridization for EBER. EBV positive tumor cells were found in 87% (47/54) pediatric BL. An unexpected expression of latent membrane protein (LMP) -1 of EBV was observed in the neighborhood of Schistosoma mansoni granulomas and scars. The frequency of EBV infection was higher in pediatric (87%) than in adulthood HL (55%) in the same area (p <0,005). The EBV-infection was related more frequently to LNH occurring in AIDS patients than in immunocompetent patients (p=0.002). The overall EBV infection rate in Bahian and German tonsils was similar (50 per cent of Bahian and 45 per cent of German tonsils). However, a significantly higher number of EBER-positive lymphoid cells were found in the germinal centers (GCs) of 8/20 EBV-positive tonsils from Brazil), while only 3/18 tonsils from Germany displayed a few EBER positive cells (1-9 cells/GC; mean: 0.5 cell/GC per case) in this compartment (p < 0.007). In addition, in two cases the EBV-infected GC cells in Bahian samples expressed an oncogenic protein, the EBV-encoded latent membrane protein (LMP)-1, findings not present in German samples. In conclusion, we shown a high frequency of EBV-associated lymphoma in pediatric and AIDS patients and therefore EBV-infection may play a major role in the lymphomagenesis in these groups. Since BL and HL are derived from GC cells, the similar rate of EBV-infection in pediatric BL and HL corroborate the hypothesis that the pattern of EBV-infection in GC may be related to the development of these lymphomas in developing areas.

This study was supported by CNPq, Brazil and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  06 Jan 2006
• Date of issue
  Oct 2005