The Epstein-Barr virus and osteosarcoma in Iranian children.

Abstract

e23543 Background: This study was conducted to describe the possible association between EBV infection and OS in Iranian children. Methods: This study carried out at Kermanshah university hospital on 48 OS tissue and ten non-cancerous bone tissue as a control group by three laboratory methods. The real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Chromogenic in-situ hybridization (CISH) done to detect the Epstein Barr Encoded RNA (EBER1) expression as long as immunohistochemistry staining (IHC) to detect EBV latent membrane protein-1 (LMP-1) in tumor cells and controls. Overall-survival (O-S), prognosis free survival (PFS) and disease-free survival (DFS) provided based on the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Specimen considered positive when EBER using PCR and CISH associated with LMP-1 using IHC stain were expressed separately in the same sample. Six out of eighty-four (12.5%) of OS cases were simultaneously EBV positive in all three methods within the tumor cells as compared to the control group. (P < 0.22) Association between EBV positivity and histologic characteristics of OS cases such as nodal involvement (P < 0.04), metastasis (P < 0.04), Ki67 reactivity (as proliferation index) (P < 0.03), and tumor stage (P < 0.05) were significant. EBV Positive patients show worse clinical symptoms in older age as well as the worse prognosis compared with negative patients. EBV positive patients presented shorter DFS, PFS, and OS. Conclusions: Our research could not find a statistical association between EBV infection and OS in Iranian children significantly. Meanwhile, we found, EBV infection could interfere in the invasive behavior of tumors. [Table: see text]