[Investigation of Epstein-Barr virus DNA and RNA in tissues of patients with lymphoma].

Relation between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and nasopharyngeal carsinoma, Burkitt's lymphoma, and lymphomas in immunosupressed patients have been shown previously in different studies. The same relationship was also shown in Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) by some researchers. The aim of this study was to demonstrate EBV nucleic acids in tissue sections of adult patients with lymphoma. The presence of EBV encoded RNA (EBER) were investigated with in situ hybridization and EBV-DNA with PCR method in 29 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections (19 lymph nodes, the others being gastric, orbital, skin, salivary gland, testicle, small intestinal, tongue root, bone marrow and gingival tissues) of 8 patients with HL and 21 patients with NHL who were followed-up in Haematology Clinics of our university hospital. EBER and EBV-DNA positivity rates were found as follows respectively; 50% (n: 4) and 37.5% (n: 3) of 8 HL patients, and 23.8% (n: 5) and 47.6% (n: 10) of 21 NHL patients. In total evaluation EBER and/or EBV-DNA were positive in 5 of 8 (62.5%) HL, and 12 of 21 (57.1%) NHL tissue sections. There was no significant difference in EBER and EBV-DNA positivity between HL and NHL groups. As a result, our study emphasize a possible EBV related aetiology in HL and NHL.