Association of Burkitt's lymphoma with the Epstein-Barr virus in two developing countries

The clinical presentation of Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) and it's association w ith the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) varies in different geographic areas, BL i n developing countries being "intermediate" between the sporadic and endemi c types, both in it's clinical presentation and it's association with EBV, which varies from 25-80%. In this study we have analysed the clinical featu res, EBV association, subtype and prevalence of the deleted variant of the Latent Membrane Protein-1 (LMP-1) of EBV in forty-two cases from two develo ping countries- India (n=25) and Argentina (n=17). In both countries the ab domen was the site most commonly involved while jaw involvement was rare. E BV was detected by in-situ hybridization using the EBER-1 RNA probe. 47% of cases from Argentina and 80% of cases from India were EBER positive. EBV t yping using EBNA-3C primers showed a predominance of Type A in both countri es (India-13/16 and Argentina-7/8). The 30bp deletion of the LMP-1 gene was detected in all evaluated cases from Argentina while the wild type of the gene was seen in all the evaluable Indian cases. Our study highlights the s imilarities and differences in the clinical presentation and EBV associatio n of BL in two developing countries and also indicates that the subtype of EBV and prevalence of the LMP-1 deletion may reflect the pre dominant subty pe in a particular population.