Molecular and Serological Prevalence of HCMV in Iranian Patients with Breast Cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in females after lung cancer (Bray et al., 2018). Only in 2018, 2,088,849 and 626,679 new cancer cases and related death, respectively, occurred in worldwide (Bray et al., 2018). Histologically, most of breast cancer cases start from milk ducts and called ductal carcinoma. The second most frequent type of breast cancer, lobular carcinoma, begins in the milk-producing glands of the breast that is histologic forms of this malignancy (Li et al., 2005;Sharma et al., 2010). Less-common other types of breast cancer include tubular, mucinous, comedo, and medullary type (Li et al., 2005). Tumor grades include types I, II and III, which are used to describe the rate of growth and

Human Cytomegalovirus Seropositivity and Viral DNA in Breast Tumors Are Associated with Poor Patient Prognosis

“…Compared to the seropositivity rate of 63% determined for this breast cancer patient population, HCMV gB DNA was only detected in 18% of the breast tumors. This result is compatible with other published studies [ 45 , 57 ]. Additionally, in our studies with mice that were latently infected with mCMV, we could only detect mCMV DNA in one or two but not all tissues examined including salivary gland, spleen, kidney, lung and breast tumors [ 63 , 71 ].…”

“…Increasing evidence shows that HCMV infection is associated with breast cancer and metastasis [ 20 , 21 ]; however, the reported rate of positive detection of HCMV DNA/mRNA/proteins in breast tumors is highly variable in studies performed around the world, which ranges from 0 to 100% [ 19 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 61 , 62 ]. While this discrepancy could be partly caused by differences in active infection levels in different countries, it is also likely that the use of different detection methods could be a contributing factor.…”

“…Previous studies showed a significantly higher percentage of breast tumors positive for HCMV DNA and/or proteins compared to normal breast tissues [ 19 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 57 ]. This could provide evidence that HCMV fulfills one of the criteria for being an oncovirus [ 70 ]; however, two other groups reported no significant differences in the detection of HCMV DNA in breast tumors versus normal breast tissues [ 48 , 52 ], which are compatible with our results.…”

“…Studies that detect HCMV proteins in a high proportion of breast tumors also show >90% detection of HCMV DNA in these same tumors [ 19 , 41 , 42 , 43 ], with two studies also detecting mRNA for HCMV IE [ 42 , 43 ]. By contrast, some studies show a 40–80% positivity of HCMV DNA detection [ 19 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], while others report very few or no HCMV DNA-positive breast tumors [ 45 , 47 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]. These differences could relate to the variability in serostatus for HCMV in the populations studied, which ranges from 60–100% [ 45 , 52 , 57 , 58 ]; however, in a population that is >90% HCMV seropositive, the detection of HCMV DNA in breast cancerous tissues is found to be as low as <20% [ 45 , 57 ].…”

“…By contrast, some studies show a 40–80% positivity of HCMV DNA detection [ 19 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], while others report very few or no HCMV DNA-positive breast tumors [ 45 , 47 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]. These differences could relate to the variability in serostatus for HCMV in the populations studied, which ranges from 60–100% [ 45 , 52 , 57 , 58 ]; however, in a population that is >90% HCMV seropositive, the detection of HCMV DNA in breast cancerous tissues is found to be as low as <20% [ 45 , 57 ]. Alternatively, these discrepancies in the detection of HCMV in breast tumors could also be due to variability in the cellular composition of the breast tumors.…”