Human herpesvirus type 7 in Hodgkin's disease.
Several lines of evidence have pointed to the involvement of a viral agent in the pathogenesis of Hodgkin's disease (HD). Therefore we investigated the presence of human herpesvirus type 7 (HHV-7) in 53 cases of HD by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA in situ hybridization ( ISH) and immunohistochemistry. HHV-7 DNA was frequently detected (68% of the cases) in HD biopsies by PCR independently of the histological type, whereas only 32% (P<0.05) of positive cases were found in 19 reactive lymph nodes. However, by applying the quantitative PCR technique, the majority of the samples showed a low level of viral load. Moreover, ISH for HHV-7 DNA was positive in a low number of small T lymphocytes and consistently negative in Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg (HRS) cells, which appeared negative for HHV-7 also at immunohistochemistry. These results indicate that the high frequency of HHV-7 infection in HD: (i) is probably non-productive, (ii) mainly involves small lymphocytes belonging to the T-lineage, and (iii) is probably due to the recruitment of non-malignant reactive cells in HD tissue.[1]References
- Human herpesvirus type 7 in Hodgkin's disease. Secchiero, P., Bonino, L.D., Lusso, P., Abele, M.C., Reato, G., Kerim, S., Palestro, G., Zauli, G., Valente, G. Br. J. Haematol. (1998) [Pubmed]
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