Prevalence and significance of human parvovirus variants in skin from primary cutaneous T cell lymphomas, inflammatory dermatoses and healthy subjects.

Primary cutaneous T cell lymphomas (CTCL) represent a heterogeneous group of T lymphomas. Virus involvement in CTCL pathogenesis has been extensively investigated, but no data are available as to a causative role of parvovirus B19. The prevalence of parvovirus variants (B19, LaL1/K71, V9) was investigated by using two nested PCRs and a genotype-2 semiquantitative PCR (Q-PCR). Parvovirus DNA was detected in similar percentage in healthy skin controls (40%; n = 42), inflammatory dermatoses (ID) (41%; n = 80) and CTCL (34%; n = 76). Among variants, genotype-2 was more prevalent in ID (26%) and CTCL (22%) than in normal skin (14%; p < 0.05). genotype-3 was never found in normal skin and was rare in ID. The only four pathological skin samples with a quantifiable genome copies/mug DNA values in Q-PCR were ID. In conclusion, despite the skin represent a reservoir for genotype-1, parvovirus infection is not involved in the etiopathogenesis of CTCL.