Analysis of herpesvirus genomes in Kikuchi's disease.

We examined the cervical lymph nodes of 30 patients with Kikuchi's disease and 15 patients with non-specific lymphadenitis, using Southern blot analysis and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify human herpesviruses such as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, and varicella-zoster virus. By Southern blot analysis, no virus DNA was recognized, but 16 of the 30 nodes from patients with Kikuchi's disease and 8 of the 15 nodes from patients with non-specific lymphadenitis showed amplified EBV DNA by PCR.