A prospective seroepidemiological study of human herpesvirus-8 infection and the risk of multiple myeloma

Abstract

Presence of the Human Herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) genome has been reported in the bone marrow of multiple myeloma (MM) patients. So far, serological studies of HHV8 and MM have been inconsistent but have not included prospective epidemiological studies. We evaluated whether HHV8 infection is associated with increased risk for MM in a prospective population-based study of 39 000 Finnish subjects who donated serum samples in the period 1968–72. Serum samples from 47 subjects who developed MM during a 23-year follow-up and 224 age, area of residence and sex-matched subjects who remained healthy over a similar follow-up period were evaluated for HHV8 antibodies at enrolment, as assayed both with an immunofluorescence assay (IFA) for lytic and latent HHV8 antigens and by Western blot (WB) with three recombinant HHV8 proteins (ORFs 65, 73 and K8.1A). HHV8 seropositivity for at least one HHV8 protein on WB was found in 7% of the Finnish population and was not associated with the risk of developing MM (Relative Risk (RR) = 0.89, Confidence Interval (CI): 0.25–3.25). HHV8 seropositivity for lytic and latent antigens in the IFA was found in 16% and 0.4% of the Finnish population and tended to associate with risk of MM (RR = 2.02, CI: 0.94–4.33 and RR = 10.00, CI: 0.91–110.29, respectively). In conclusion, no statistically significant evidence for an association between HHV8 infection and the risk of future MM was found. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com

Split genes and their expression in Kaposi's sarcoma‐associated herpesvirus

“…KS is a tumour of endothelial cell origin and MCD is a B-cell lymphoproliferative disorder. Recent reports further suggest that KSHV infection might play a role indirectly in the pathogenesis of multiple myeloma [5][6][7]. Like other gammaherpesvirus such as human B lymphocyte-tropic Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), monkey T lymphocyte-tropic herpesvirus saimiri and murine B lymphocyte-tropic herpesvirus 68, KSHV is another human lymphocyte-tropic virus and usually infects B lymphocytes and establishes latency in the lymphocytes following primary infection.…”

Immunohistochemical study association between human herpesvirus 8 and multiple myeloma

“…Although there is not accurate report for prevalence and incidence of disease in Iran but according to Iranian annual cancer registrant report in 2003, hematopoietic malignancies were the seventh common cancer [19]. It has been suggested that some viruses such as human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis C virus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and HHV-8 can be contributed in myeloma pathogenesis [5,[20][21][22] but these association has not been completely confirmed [22][23][24].…”

Epidemiology of Kaposi's Sarcoma herpesvirus (HHV8) in Västerbotten county, Sweden

“…The sensitivity of the latent assay is usually not more than 80-95% [Chatlynne and Ablashi, 1999], while the immunofluorescence assay on virus producing PEL cell lines (''lytic IFA'') has been found to have a sensitivity approaching 100% [Lennette et al, 1996;Smith et al, 1997;Chatlynne et al, 1998;Tedeschi et al, 2001a]. While sensitivity is straightforward to estimate using samples from patients with HHV8-associated disease and/or detectable HHV8 DNA, estimation of specificity is a more challenging issue because it is not possible to exclude that healthy subjects may have or had an HHV8 infection.…”