Epstein-Barr Virus Infections in Brazil. II. Hodgkin's Disease2

Abstract

Sixty-seven cases of Hodgkin's disease (HD) occurring in São Paulo, Brazil, were studied. Males with HD predominated over females 2.3 to 1. Sixty-six percent of the cases occurred in patients under 30 years of age, 31.7% under 20 years of age, and only 7.5% after 50 years of age. Lymphocyte predominance and mixed cellularity histologic types were most common in patients less than 15 years old, and nodular sclerosis was most common in the 15- to 19-year-old group. Sera from all patients had antibody to the viral capsid antigen (VCA) of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The geometric mean titer (GMT) of VCA antibody with the use of Jijoye cells as antigen was 1:162, and 31.3% of patients had titers of 1:320 or more; in controls, the GMT was 1:67 and 3.8% had titers of 1:320 or more. Similar results were obtained when EB-3 cells were used as antigen. The highest titers occurred in males, in mixed cellularity and lymphocyte depletion forms, and in stage 2 of illness. EBV-specific IgM antibody and heterophile antibody levels were not elevated, but 20.5% of the HD patients had antibody to the early antigen of EBV present in their sera. Antibody levels for herpes simplex virus, cytomegalovirus, rubella, measles, parainfluenza viruses, and papovavirus were not significantly elevated over those in matched controls.

A population‐based case‐control study of EBV and other viral antibodies among persons with Hodgkin's disease and their siblings

“…Of the eight published studies in which EA antibodies were measured (Table XII), only one study found no difference between cases and controls (Hesse et al, 1977). In the present study, the prevalence of reactivity among cases was higher for EA-R than for D, in agreement with the findings of and of Evans et al, 1978. (Lang et al, 1978 reported that the EA antibodies detected among 27 children with HD were mostly the D component.)…”

“…A CI that excludes the null value of 1 .O is statistically significant at the 0.05 level. P-values given were obtained by the exact test using Miettinen's tests and methods used have been described previously (Evans et al, 1978(Evans et al, , 1980Henle et al 1971Henle et al , 1974. For the VCA of EBV, an elevated titer was defined as >1:320.…”

Lack of involvement of known oncogenic DNA viruses in Epstein-Barr virus-negative Hodgkin's disease

“…There are many seroepidemiological studies investigating the relationship between other viruses and HD, but few molecular studies. Serological studies have found no consistent association between herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, cytomegalovirus (CMV), human herpesvirus-7 (HHV-7), rubella, measles and parainfluenza virus (Langenhuysen et al, 1974;Evans et al, 1978;Evans and Gutensohn, 1984;Clark et al, manuscript in preparation). However, elevated antibody titres to human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) have been found in HD Biberfeld et al, 1988;Clark et al, 1990), furthermore antibody titres are higher in younger than in older adults and in EBVnegative as opposed to EBV-associated cases (Clark et al, 1990, manuscript in preparation).…”

In vitro susceptibilities of normal human skin fibroblasts to oncoviruses, and the decreased susceptibility to HSV of fibroblasts from untreated Hodgkin's patients

“…A few cloning experiments were inconclusive on this point. It is noticeable that most (Levine et al, 1971;Henderson et al, 1973;Hesse et al, 1977) but not all (Evans et al, 1978) studies show elevated titres of serum antibody to members of the herpes virus group in HD patients, whereas these patients have normal titres of antibodies to influenza (Ebbesen et al, 1979) and adenovirus (Hesse et al, 1977).…”