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Anales de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas (Asunción)
Print version ISSN 1816-8949
Abstract
NAVARRO TREVISAN, NP and INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN CIENCIAS DE LA SALUD. Dpto. de Patología et al. Detection of Epstein- Barr virus for immunohistochemistry in patients with lymphoma. An. Fac. Cienc. Méd. (Asunción) [online]. 2013, vol.46, n.2, pp.25-34. ISSN 1816-8949.
ABSTRACT The Epstein-Barr virus is a gammaherpes virus that infects mainly B lymphocytes staying inside it in a latent status, being able to infect a T lymphocytes and epithelial cells as well. The persistence of the viral infection immortalizes lymphocytes and favors the development of malignant lymphoproliferative processes like lymphomas. Even though it is known that the relationship between a chronic infection of the virus and the development of the lymphoma varies according to the histological type and that it increases in immunocompetent patients of advanced age, the scientific evidence indicates not only the importance of this virus as an infectious agent associated with the etiology of this neoplasm, but also as a marker associated to a refractory response and bad survivability. The goal of this descriptive observational study was to detect the presence of Epstein-Barr virus through immunohistochemistry using monoclonal antibody against the viral antigen Latent Membrane Protein in 86 patients with lymphoma. The positivity for this protein in the total patients with lymphoma was of 44%, corresponding 20% to patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and 24% to patients with no Hodgkin lymphoma. The detection of virus in these diseases contributes to the clinical handling of them because the virus not only has a role in the etiologic aspect but also is an important prognosis marker, even of therapeutic interest. Key Words: Epstein-Barr virus, immunohistochemistry, lymphoma.