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Fibropapillomatosis (FP) of marine turtles is a neoplastic disease of ecological concern. A fibropapilloma-associated turtle herpesvirus (FPTHV) is consistently present, usually at loads exceeding one virus copy per tumor cell. DNA from an array of parasites of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) was examined with quantitative PCR (qPCR) to determine whether any carried viral loads are sufficient to implicate them as vectors for FPTHV. Marine leeches (Ozobranchus spp.) were found to carry high viral DNA loads; some samples approached 10 million copies per leech. Isopycnic sucrose density gradient/qPCR analysis confirmed that some of these copies were associated with particles of the density of enveloped viruses. The data implicate the marine leech Ozobranchus as a mechanical vector for FPTHV. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of FPTHV gene expression indicated that most of the FPTHV copies in a fibropapilloma have restricted DNA polymerase expression, suggestive of latent infection.

The new england journal of medicine n engl j med 348;2 www.nejm.org january 9, 2003 170 correspondence Prostatectomy or Watchful Waiting in Prostate Cancer to the editor: In their article comparing prostatectomy with watchful waiting, Holmberg et al. (Sept. 12 issue) 1 present their analysis according to the intention-to-treat principle, but the true treatment effect might be larger than that observed because of noncompliance with the protocol. 2 Presentation of information on the outcome in the participants who did not comply with the protocol and an additional per-protocol analysis could give more insight into the real treatment effect.In addition, the authors report a statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of distant metastases. However, outside of the protocol, untreated men might undergo a search for metastases more often than treated men. Such a difference could have serious implications for the conclusions drawn by the authors.