Comparative prevalence of plasma human herpesvirus 8 DNA in sexual contact and intravenous injection routes of HIV transmission

Abstract

Detection of plasma human herpesvirus (HHV)-8 DNA correlates with antibodies to lytic HHV-8 antigens, being predictive of Kaposi's sarcoma in HIV-infected patients. We show that the prevalence of plasma HHV-8 DNA was 10.6% for HIV infection through sexual contact and 7.1% for HIV infection through intravenous injection. In addition, the prevalence of plasma HHV-8 DNA was significantly associated with male gender (9.4%) and HIV viral load below 1000 copies mL(-1) (12.1%), but not age or CD4 cell count in HIV-infected patients. The study suggested that detection of plasma HHV-8 DNA could be important for monitoring replicating HHV-8 in HIV-infected patients, and may have use as a marker for the diagnosis of HHV-8 infection in blood-borne transmission.

Prevalence of human herpesvirus 8 DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of acute and chronic leukemia patients in Taiwan: Table 1

“…Our finding correlated with the previous report in that no difference in the seropositive rate is associated with gender or age in patients with lymphoma, leukemia, autoimmune cytopenias and myeloproliferative disorders (Tsai et al , 2005). However, our finding was not in agreement with the association of male gender with prevalence of plasma HHV‐8 DNA in HIV‐infected patients (Lin et al , 2008). Moreover, higher prevalence of plasma HHV‐8 DNA in HIV‐infected patients was observed in those younger than 40 years (Lin et al , 2008).…”

“…However, our finding was not in agreement with the association of male gender with prevalence of plasma HHV‐8 DNA in HIV‐infected patients (Lin et al , 2008). Moreover, higher prevalence of plasma HHV‐8 DNA in HIV‐infected patients was observed in those younger than 40 years (Lin et al , 2008). The difference could be due to the risk of HHV‐8 transmission by sexual contact and intravenous injection routes in HIV patients.…”

“…Overall, 14 (10.29%) of the Taiwanese leukemia patients had HHV‐8 DNA detected in PBMCs, higher than the percentage (5.8%, 29/501) of plasma PCR‐positive HHV‐8 cases among malignant lymphoma patients in Spain (de Sanjosé et al , 2004). In this study, the percentage of HHV‐8 DNA in PBMCs of the relatives' cases (8.94%, 11/123) and leukemia patients (10.29%, 14/136) was similar to our previous research in that 8.9% of HIV‐infected Taiwanese patients had seropositivity of HHV‐8 DNA detected in plasma (Lin et al , 2008). Among the major leukemia subtypes, prevalence of HHV‐8 DNA in PBMCs was nonsignificantly associated with acute lymphoid leukemia (OR=0.84, 95% CI=0.32–2.18), acute myeloid leukemia (OR=1.05, 95% CI=0.28–3.98), chronic myeloid leukemia (OR=0.59, 95% CI=0.07–5.35), aplastic anemia (OR=0.88, 95% CI=0.10–7.46) and solid tumors (OR=0.39, 95% CI=0.04–3.83).…”

“…Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), also known as Kaposi's sarcoma (KS)-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), belongs to the gammaherpesvirus (Ablashi et al, 2002;Lin et al, 2008). HHV-8 causes KS, multicentric Castleman disease and primary effusion lymphoma (Ablashi et al, 2002;Haddad et al, 2008).…”

Recombinant ORF66 and ORFK12 antigens for the detection of human herpesvirus 8 antibodies in HIV-positive and -negative patients

“…Sensitivity and specificity of ORF66 and ORF-K12-based western blot strip assay and ELISA Twelve serum samples from the plasma HHV-8 DNApositive patients that were analysed in our previous report (Lin et al 2008) were used to determine the sensitivity of the recombinant protein-based Western blot strip assay (Fig. 2).…”