Relationship between the Epstein‐Barr virus genome and nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Caucasian patients

Abstract

In order to explore whether undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) shows a regular association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), regardless of the geographical and ethnic origin of the patient, a correlated histopathological and nucleic acid hybridization study was performed on biopsies from Caucasian patients with nasopharyngeal carcinomas and from various controls. Among 12 undifferentiated NPCs, 11 were positive for EBV-DNA, with multiple copies of the viral genome per cell. Serological tests showed elevated anti-VCA and anti-EA(DA) titers. Six NPCs with various degrees of squamous differentiation, four malignant lymphomas of the nasopharynx and seven carcinomas located outside the nasopharynx were EBV-DNA negative. These findings further stress the uniqueness and regularity of the association between EBV-DNA and undifferentiated NPC. Clearly, the association extends over geographical barriers and holds true not only in the previously studied, moderate-incidence African ethnic group, but also in the low-incidence Western patients.

In situ Detection of Epstein-Barr Virus Markers in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients

“…Tugwood et al [23] also detected EBV-specific RNA in such tissues. It would seem likely, therefore, that EBV infection might be a common occurrence in the nasopharynx and the low-grade infection occurring in that site might explain why the viral DNA was detected by some investigators [4,9,17] but not by others [1,2], In summary, the present results support the notion that whereas EBV may be a contributing factor in the development of NPC, other factors yet unidentified may also be involved.…”

“…Its association with nasopharyngeal car cinoma (NPC) has been well documented by the reg ular presence of the viral genome [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and EB nuclear antigen (EBNA) [3.4.8] in the tumor tissue and by the high level and broad spectrum of EBV antibodies in the serum of NPC patients [4], Apart from NPC. the virus reportedly also infects normal epithelial cells [9 11].…”

Epstein-Barr virus in nasopharyngeal and salivary gland carcinomas of Greenland Eskimoes

“…IgA antibodies to these 2 antigens were also often demonstrable in sera from NPC patients (Henle & Henle, 1976;Henle et al, 1977). This pattern of elevated IgG and IgA antibodies to VCA and EA (D) has been found uniformly in NPC patients, whether from low-or high-risk areas (Henle & Henle, 1976;Henle et al, 1977;de The et al, 1978;Klein, 1979;Lanier et al, 1981). The association of NPC with EBV has been further strengthened by the detection of EBV genomes in the malignant epithelial cells by nucleicacid hybridization techniques (zur Hausen et al, 1970(zur Hausen et al, , 1974Nonoyama et al, 1973;Wolf et al, 1973Wolf et al, , 1975 and by demonstration of EBV nuclear antigen (EBNA) in the carcinoma cells (Huang et al, 1974;Klein et al, 1974).…”

“…Over a 20-year period 920 of malignant salivary-gland neoplasms in Greenland were identified as undifferentiated carcinomas (Nielsen et al, 1978 (Henle & Henle, 1979a (Nielsen et al, 1978;Lanier et al, 1981) but, in the 3 cases described here, biopsy samples from the nasopharynx contained no tumour tissue. EBV is the causative agent of infectious mononucleosis (Henle & Henle, 1979b) and is uniquely associated with BL (Epstein & Achong, 1979) and NPC (AndersonAnvret et al, 1978;Klein, 1979). Recently, a link has also been demonstrated between EBV and certain lymphoproliferative disorders that occur in patients with inherited or acquired immunodeficiencies (Saemundsen et al, 1981 STEHLIN, J.…”

Reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus from latency

“…These include Burkitt's lymphoma [24], nasopharyngeal carcinoma [25] and Hodgkin's disease [26] as well as cancers in immunocompromised hosts like post-transplantation lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD) [27] and AIDS-associated lymphomas [28], all reviewed in [1]. About 5%-10% of gastric carcinomas are also associated with EBV.…”