Epstein-Barr virus and CD30+ malignant lymphomas.

Phenotypic, genotypic, and karyotypic analyses have indicated that Hodgkin's disease and CD30+ anaplastic large cell lymphoma may be conceived as malignancies derived from activated, cytokine-producing lymphoid cells, in many instances with an immature genotype. Most recently, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genomes and gene products, most notably the transformation-associated latent membrane protein (LMP), have been detected in approximately 50 and 20% of the cases, respectively. These findings suggest that EBV may superimpose an activated phenotype on an immature lymphoid cell, contributing to the pathoetiology of sizable proportions of these CD30+ malignancies.