Abstract
Viruses have been implicated in cancer development in both humans and animals. The role of viruses in cancer is typically to initiate cellular transformation through cellular DNA damage, although specific mechanisms remain unknown. Silent and long-term viral infections need to be present, in order to initiate cancer disease. In efforts to establish a causative role of viruses, first is needed to demonstrate the strength and consistency of associations in different populations. The aim of this study was to determine the association of bovine leukemia virus (BLV), a causative agent of leukemia in cattle, with breast cancer and its biomarkers used as prognosis of the severity of the disease (Ki67, HER2, hormonal receptors) in Colombian women. An unmatched, observational case–control study was conducted among women undergoing breast surgery between 2016–2018. Malignant samples (n = 75) were considered as cases and benign samples (n = 83) as controls. Nested-liquid PCR, in-situ PCR and immunohistochemistry were used for viral detection in blood and breast tissues. For the risk assessment, only BLV positive samples from breast tissues were included in the analysis. BLV was higher in cases group (61.3%) compared with controls (48.2%), with a statistically significant association between the virus and breast cancer in the unconditional logistic regression (adjusted-OR = 2.450,95%CI:1.088–5.517, p = 0.031). In this study, BLV was found in both blood and breast tissues of participants and an association between breast cancer and the virus was confirmed in Colombia, as an intermediate risk factor.
Highlights
Cancer represents one of the greatest threats to public health worldwide
About 15–20% of cancers are correlated with a virus infection that leads to cellular transformation and tumorigenesis processes, with different mechanisms reported among them that are involved in the initial stages of cancer development [8]
Pre-malignant lesions were not considered initially in the study design, within the cohort of patients ten of them were confirmed as pre-malignant after surgery; and considering the risk of pre-malignant lesions to evolve into breast cancer, and the natural history of the disease, we evaluated if the presence of the virus influenced the Odd Ratios (ORs) in patients with this diagnosis as a complement to the initial analysis, in terms of not losing valuable information obtained from the study
Summary
Cancer represents one of the greatest threats to public health worldwide. It is responsible for about 163.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year and is considered one of the most common causes of death, that is highly related with a lower life expectancy. About 15–20% of cancers are correlated with a virus infection that leads to cellular transformation and tumorigenesis processes, with different mechanisms reported among them that are involved in the initial stages of cancer development [8]. Tumorigenesis is usually described as a slow process, that could take decades after the initial infection for the final outcome, in which viral infections could remain quiescent, latent or at a very low viral load in the host for several years until cancer development [6, 9]. Some of the mechanisms associated with cancer development are involved in epigenetic and genomic factors, such as the accumulation of mutations, inhibition of DNA repair mechanisms, induction of host genome instability, degradation of p53 in host cells and chronic inflammatory processes [10, 11]
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