Individuals with HGV-RNA are at high risk of B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma development.

Lymphoma is a common hematological malignancy. Hepatitis viruses, especially hepatitis B and hepatitis C, are known risk factors for development of non-Hodgkin lymphomas. However, there are a number of patients with hepatitis in whom no virus can be identified and it was therefore postulated that there may be other agents which may be causing hepatitis. Many new hepatitis viruses have indeed been identified and proposed to have possible roles in pathogenesis of many disorders. Hepatitis G virus (HGV) is an example of a newly detected hepatitis virus. Whethere there is a correlation between infection and development of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is of interest. Therefore an appraisal of the prevalence of HGV RNA among patients with B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma comparing with healthy control subjects was performed. According to the literature review, three reports covering 247 cases of non Hodgkin's lymphoma were recruited. The overall prevalence of HGV RNA positivity was found to be 7.2 % (18/247). Of the three reports, only two had complete data on the prevalence in both patients with B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and healthy control subjects andwere used for further metanalysis study, covering 178 cases and 355 healthy subjects. The overall antibody positive rate in the patients and healthy subjects were 8.4 % (15/178) and 0.8 % (3/355), respectively, with an odds ratio is 10.8. According to this study, it can be seen that individuals who are HGV RNA positive may be at very high risk of B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma development.