Common virus may make Hodgkin's
Disease more aggressive
by Michael O'Leary
SEATTLE -- Apr. 19,
2001 (cancerfacts.com) -- The virus that caused the "kissing
disease" may make a form of blood cancer more aggressive
in older women, say researchers in a new study.
In the largest study
of the affect of the Epstein-Barr virus on the survival of people
with Hodgkin's Disease, a cancer of the immune system, researchers
found that older women with genetic evidence of the virus in
their cancer cells had three times the risk of dying as compared
to similar women who had no evidence of the virus in their cancer
cells.
Writing in the April
15 issue of the journal Cancer, the research team led by Dr.
Christina Clarke says that if their data is confirmed, the presence
of the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) genes in Hodgkin's patients may
prove to be a strong marker for aggressive cancer at least in
older women
| "If
EBV positive status is indeed an important marker for aggressive
cancer," they wrote. "It may prove useful as an additional
factor in the clinical management of these patients, for whom
5-year survival approaches 60 percent." |
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The Epstein Barr Virus
(EBV) is a member of the herpesvirus family and one of the most
common human viruses responsible for the "kissing disease"
mononeucleuosis. The virus occurs worldwide, and most people
become infected with EBV sometime during their lives.
Although rare, a form
of cancer called Burkitt's lymphoma, has long been linked to
the virus and has kept the virus on the list of suspects in other
lymphomas including Hodgkin's Disease, which occurs in people
either between ages 15 and 34 or after age 55. A half-dozen studies
have looked at the link between Hodgkin's Disease and EBV, but
those studies had not determined whether the virus was present
specifically in the cancer cells.
The researchers examined
the records of 311 adult women diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease
and tested stored samples of the cancer cells from the patients
for presence of the Epstein-Barr Virus. They found that 21 of
the 53 patients (40 percent) who had EBV in their cancer cells
had died after a median follow-up of 63 months. That compared
to 37 of the 258 patients (14 percent) with no evidence of the
virus in their cancer cells who had died.
While there was no
difference in survival among younger women (19-44) with either
EBV positive or negative Hodgkin's Disease, the chance of survival
among older Hodgkin's patients (45-79) with the virus was significantly
poorer.
The researchers conclude
that if the survival difference between older and younger women
is confirmed in subsequent studies, might help explain other
differences in how the cancer starts and progresses among the
two age groups most susceptible to Hodgkin's Disease.
SOURCE: Cancer 2001; 91:1579-1587
|