Prevalence of human herpesvirus 8 infection in Iranian patients with hematological malignancies

Abstract

Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is a gamma-herpesvirus linked causally to Kaposi’s sarcoma and many malignancies such as multicentric Castleman’s disease, primary effusion lymphoma, some lymphoproliferative diseases and post transplantation bone marrow failure. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HHV-8 infection in patients with malignant hematological diseases. From September, 2009 to April, 2010, 62 patients with hematological diseases were recruited for the study. Five milliliter of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) anti-coagulated peripheral blood was collected from each subject. The presence of HHV-8 DNA was tested using a real time technology for the sequences from HHV-8 ORF65. The mean age of patients was 33.9 ± 18.0 years. Four of the patients were found to be HHV-8 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive using Real time-PCR and viral prevalence was 6.5%. HHV-8 was found in 1 (25%) patient with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), 3 (75%) patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and none was detected in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and lymphoma. The results of this study show that patients with malignant hematological diseases may have HHV-8 infection, therefore, it seems that considering HHV-8 infection in patients with hematological malignancies might be beneficial. Key words: Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), malignant hematological diseases, prevalence, Iran.