DNA from malignant cells is present in the serum/plasma of cancer patients and DNA from this source is amenable to analysis by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In the present study, we evaluated whether Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV) DNA is present in the serum of patients with EBV‐associated Hodgkin's disease (HD). Using conventional PCR, EBV DNA was detected in serum from 30/33 patients with EBV‐associated HD but in only 6/26 patients with non‐EBV‐associated disease (p < 0.001). Samples from healthy individuals were negative and only 5/12 infectious mononucleosis samples were positive. Real‐time quantitative PCR was subsequently employed to determine the concentration of EBV DNA present in serum; among positive samples the level ranged from 1 to 705 copies per 125 μl of serum. Post‐treatment samples from 5/14 cases with EBV‐associated HD contained detectable EBV DNA; analysis of this small group of cases suggests that positivity in post‐treatment samples correlates with risk factors indicative of a poor prognosis. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that DNA from Reed‐Sternberg cells is present in the serum of HD patients, and further suggest that serum EBV should be evaluated as a prognostic marker. Int. J. Cancer (Pred. Oncol.) 84:442–448, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Recent studies have reported the presence of simian virus 40 (SV40) DNA sequences in approximately 40% of tumor samples from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) patients from the United States. We examined a series of 259 tumor and blood samples, including 152 NHL samples, from patients in the U.K. with lymphadenopathy and lymphoid leukemia for the presence of SV40 DNA using a highly sensitive quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and a consensus PCR assay capable of detecting the polyomaviruses SV40, BK, and JC. SV40 DNA sequences were not detected in any sample using either assay. Because the incidence of NHL is similar in the U.K. and the United States, this finding suggests that SV40 is unlikely to have an etiologic role in NHL.

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