[A paired case-control study for assessing the relationship between the incidence of malignant lymphomas and the viruses infections].

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the relationships between the viruses infections and the incidence of malignant lymphomas (ML) in Sichuan province.

METHODS

A hospital-based paired case-control study was designed with two controls per case. The case group comprised 97 cases diagnosed as ML by pathological examination; the control group A consisted of 194 subjects randomly selected from those with non-malignancies by matching on both gender and age in the corresponding period. Additionally, a control group B for Epstein-Barr virus(EBV), including 80 subjects, were chosen from other non-malignant diseases at the same time. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) was employed to test the serum antibodies and antigens of hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), and hepatitis B virus (HBV). The EBV was confirmed by the EBER in situ-hybridization (EBER-ISH) of pathological tissue.

RESULTS

The positive rate of EBV in ML group was 70.1%(68/97) and that of control group was 7.5%(6/80). The difference between these two groups showed a statistical significance by conditional logistic regression analysis (OR = 6.58, 95% CI: 16.164-82.846, P = 0.0001). The differences in HCV, CMV and HBV infections between case group and control group demonstrated no statistical significance with P-values of 0.260, 0.258 and 0.399 respectively. We found no positive results of HIV antibody in case group and control group.

CONCLUSION

The incidence of ML in Sichuan displayed a significant association with EBV infection. However, there were no relationships between the incidence of ML and the HCV, HBV, HIV, CMV infections in the area.