HUMAN HERPES-VIRUS-8 (KAPOSIS-SARCOMA HERPES-VIRUS) AND MALIGNANT LYMPHOPROLIFERATIONS IN FRANCE - A MOLECULAR STUDY OF 250 CASES INCLUDING2 AIDS-ASSOCIATED BODY CAVITY BASED LYMPHOMAS
A. Gessain et al., HUMAN HERPES-VIRUS-8 (KAPOSIS-SARCOMA HERPES-VIRUS) AND MALIGNANT LYMPHOPROLIFERATIONS IN FRANCE - A MOLECULAR STUDY OF 250 CASES INCLUDING2 AIDS-ASSOCIATED BODY CAVITY BASED LYMPHOMAS, Leukemia, 11(2), 1997, pp. 266-272
The new human herpes virus 8 (HHV8) was recently detected in cases of
body cavity based lymphoma (BCBL), a rare B cell lymphoma, mostly AIDS
-associated. We investigated for HHV8 DNA sequences a series of 250 B
or T cell lymphoproliferative malignancies, as seen in France, includi
ng 126 leukemias and 124 lymphomas (232 nan-AIDS-associated and 18 AID
S-associated tumors), HHV8 sequences were detected in only three patie
nts, The first two were homosexual males, HIV-infected since 1985 who
suffered from a BCBL initially characterized in one case by a pleural
lymphomatous effusion and a peritoneal one in the other case. A high l
evel of HHV8 copies was detected in the tumoral cells of these two BCB
L, In contrast, in the third positive patient who had an AIDS-associat
ed immunoblastic lymphoma, the HHV8 sequences level was quite low. In
the two BCBL patients, the HHV8-infected clonal B cells had a large im
munoblastic feature with an indeterminate phenotype and were also infe
cted by Epstein-Barr virus, In one BCBL case, a semiquantitative PCR a
nalysis revealed that the HHV8 sequences were much more abundant in th
e effusion tumor cells than in the cutaneous Kaposi's biopsy while no
HHV8 sequence was detectable In the peripheral blood lymphocytes. This
study reports HHV8-assoclated BCBL in European AIDS patients and conf
irms that HHV8 is present at a high copy number in the tumoral B cells
of this malignancy, Furthermore, HHV8 does not seem to play a pathoge
nic role in any of the other T or B malignant lymphoid neoplasias stud
ied so far, This study also stresses the necessity for quantification
studies in interpretation of a positive PCR analysis for HHV8 sequence
s, especially in patients at risk for HIV infection or Kaposi's sarcom
a.