Prevalence of antibodies to four herpesviruses among adults with glioma and controls

The authors previously reported statistically significant inverse associati ons between adult onset glioma and histories of chickenpox and shingles amo ng 462 cases and 443 controls in the San Francisco Bay Area Adult Glioma St udy (1991-1995) and a suggestive but nonsignificant inverse association wit h immunoglobulin G antibodies to varicella-zoster virus in a small subset o f these cases. This report considers antibodies to four common herpesviruse s (varicella zoster, herpes simplex, cytomegalovirus, and Epstein Barr) amo ng 134 cases and 165 controls that represent all subjects for whom usable b lood specimens were available. The prevalences of immunoglobulin G antibodi es to varicella-zoster virus, herpes simplex virus, cytomegalovirus, and Ep stein-Barr virus were 90%, 71%, 57%, and 90%, respectively, After adjustmen t for age, White versus non-White ethnicity, and gender, glioblastoma cases were less likely than controls to have immunoglobulin G antibodies to vari cella-zoster virus (odds ratio = 0.4; 95% confidence interval: 0.1, 0.9). T hey were also somewhat less likely to have antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus but somewhat more likely to have antibodies to herpes simplex virus and cy tomegalovirus, Antibody prevalences to all four herpesviruses were similar between cases with other glioma histologies and controls. These results cor roborate our previously suggestive findings of an inverse association of va ricella-zoster virus antibodies with adult onset glioma.