Association of Burkitt's Lymphoma with the Epstein-Barr Virus in Two Developing Countries

Abstract

The clinical presentation of Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) and it's association with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) varies in different geographic areas, BL in developing countries being “intermediate” between the sporadic and endemic 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 features, EBV association, subtype and prevalence of the deleted variant of the Latent Membrane Protein-I (LMP-1) of EBV in forty-two cases from two developing countries- India (n=25) and Argentina (n=17). In both countries the abdomen was the site most commonly involved while jaw involvement was rare. EBV 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 typing using EBNA-3C primers showed a predominance of Type A in both countries (India-13/16 and Argentina-7/8). The 30bp deletion of the LMP-I 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 similarities and differences in the clinical presentation and EBV association of BL in two developing countries and also indicates that the subtype of EBV and prevalence of the LMP-I deletion may reflect the predominant subtype in a particular population.