Retrospective analysis of in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma in central China.

Little is known about the presence and possible role of () in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), its co-infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), or their association with clinical characteristics of patients with NPC in Central China, where NPC is non-endemic. A total of 45 NPC formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues were retrospectively analyzed using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and a nested PCR combined with DNA sequencing to detect the presence of , and using reverse transcription-quantitative PCR to detect the presence of EBV. Clinical data including EBV and status were associated with overall survival (OS). All tumors were undifferentiated, non-keratinizing carcinomas, of which 40/45 (88.9%) were positive for EBV (EBV), 26/45 (57.8%) were positive for (by IHC), and 7/45 (15.6%) were positive for DNA ( ). All seven DNA-positive NPCs were co-infected with EBV. The 5-year survival rates of the patients with EBV/ , EBV/ , and EBV/ tumors were 60.0% (3/5), 39.4% (13/33) and 42.9% (3/7), respectively. No significant difference was found between the OS of NPC patients among the different infection groups (P=0.793). In conclusion, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to describe and confirm the presence of in FFPE tissues from patients with NPC. was found to co-exist with EBV in NPC tumor tissues, but is not etiologically relevant to NPC in non-endemic areas, such as Central China.