Abstract
Background: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with many epithelial malignancies. A few reports on the association between EBV and thyroid tumorigenesis have been investigated. However, the conclusion is highly contradictory. We aimed to explore the role of EBV in thyroid nodule development and its clinical significance in a cohort from southern China.Method: We conducted a retrospective data abstraction study of patients who underwent thyroidectomy between December 2017 and June 2018. We retrospectively analyzed the clinicopathological parameters and EBV infection status (serological antibodies and in situ hybridization).Result: The cohort comprised 384 patients with newly diagnosed thyroid diseases, including 261 papillary thyroid carcinomas, 87 nodular goiters, 21 follicular adenomas, 12 follicular thyroid carcinomas, and 3 medullary thyroid carcinomas. Forty-two (10.9%) patients were identified as being serological antibody positive. However, there was no association between the clinicopathological parameters and serological antibody positivity. Additionally, none of the patients showed EBER expression in thyroid normal/cancer cell nuclei in in situ hybridization.Conclusion: In this study, no correlation between EBV and thyroid diseases was found in a cohort from southern China.
Highlights
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a well-known human tumor virus with a very high prevalence in the population, especially for children and youth
The patients included in the study met the following criteria: [1] primary thyroid neoplasms confirmed by post-operative pathological results, [2] no history of thyroid/neck surgery, [3] no previous diagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) or other EBV-related disease, [4] no history of neck radiotherapy, [5] exclusion of cervical metastatic cancer, parathyroid neoplasms and Graves’ disease, and [6] sufficient medical history
We evaluated the presence of EBV in thyroid cells by in situ hybridization (ISH) analysis using EBV-encoded small RNA (EBER) probes, PNA probe/FITC, and the PNA ISH detection kit (Dako, Denmark) on the formalin fixed and paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples
Summary
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a well-known human tumor virus with a very high prevalence in the population, especially for children and youth. Once EBV infects a host cell, it starts to induce a lytic or latent infection with diverse genes expressed. EBV nuclear antigens (EBNA 1, 2, 3A, 3B, 3C, and LP), the latent membrane proteins (LMP 1, 2A, and 2B) and two small noncoding RNAs (EBVcoded small RNA, EBER-1, and EBER-2) are expressed during the infection [3]. These genes collaborate to induce tumorigenesis by causing systematic inflammation, suppressing the antitumoral immune system, and preventing anoikis. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with many epithelial malignancies.
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