Zekri Abdel-Rahman N, Bahnassy Abeer A, Mohamed Waleed S, El-Kassem Fatma A, El-Khalidi Saja J, Hafez Mohamed M, Hassan Zeinab K
Virology and Immunology Unit, Cancer Biology Department, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo 11976, Egypt.
J Egypt Natl Canc Inst. 2012 Sep;24(3):123-31. doi: 10.1016/j.jnci.2012.06.001. Epub 2012 Jul 10.
The role of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in breast carcinogenesis is still controversial. Unraveling this relationship is potentially important for better understanding of breast cancer etiology, early detection and possibly prevention of breast cancer. The aim of the current study is to unravel the association between EBV and primary invasive breast cancer (PIBC) in two different Arab populations (Egyptian and Iraqi women).
The study was done on paraffin-embedded tissues of 40 Egyptian and 50 Iraqi patients with PIBC in addition to 20 normal breast tissues as controls for each group. Both controls and neoplastic tissues were assessed for the expression of EBV genes and proteins (EBNA-1, LMP-1, and EBER) as well as CD21 marker by immunohistochemistry (IHC), in situ hybridization (ISH) and PCR techniques.
Our gold standard for EBV reactivity in breast cancer cases was positivity of both EBNA1 by PCR and EBER by in situ hybridization. EBV was detected in 18/40 (45%) and 14/50 (28%) of Egyptian and Iraqi women; respectively where p=0.073, compared to 0/20 (0%) of their control groups (p<0.05). Regarding the association between EBV positivity and tumor grade, there was not any statistical significant difference between EBV presence and tumor grade in both populations where p=0.860 and p=0.976 and the calculated rank biserial correlation coefficient was 0.114 and 0.269 for Egyptian and Iraqi women respectively.
Our findings show that EBV might act as a promoter for the development of PIBC and it might contribute to increased tumor aggressiveness in Egyptian and Iraqi patients.
爱泼斯坦-巴尔病毒（EBV）在乳腺癌发生中的作用仍存在争议。阐明这种关系对于更好地理解乳腺癌病因、早期检测以及可能的预防具有潜在重要意义。本研究的目的是在两个不同的阿拉伯人群（埃及和伊拉克女性）中阐明EBV与原发性浸润性乳腺癌（PIBC）之间的关联。
本研究对40例埃及和50例伊拉克PIBC患者的石蜡包埋组织进行了检测，另外每组有20例正常乳腺组织作为对照。通过免疫组织化学（IHC）、原位杂交（ISH）和PCR技术评估对照组织和肿瘤组织中EBV基因和蛋白（EBNA-1、LMP-1和EBER）以及CD21标志物的表达。
我们用于乳腺癌病例中EBV反应性的金标准是PCR检测EBNA1阳性和原位杂交检测EBER阳性。在埃及和伊拉克女性中，分别有18/40（45%）和14/50（28%）检测到EBV；与对照组的0/20（0%）相比，p = 0.073（p < 0.05）。关于EBV阳性与肿瘤分级之间的关联，在两个群体中，EBV存在与肿瘤分级之间均无统计学显著差异，埃及女性和伊拉克女性中p分别为0.860和0.976，计算得到的等级双列相关系数分别为0.114和0.269。
我们的研究结果表明，EBV可能是PIBC发生发展的促进因素，并且可能导致埃及和伊拉克患者肿瘤侵袭性增加。
