Hepatitis B, C and G virus infection in patients with lymphoproliferative disorders

To define the relationship between hepatitis viruses including GBV-C/HGV and lymphoproliferative disorders, we investigated the prevalence of HBV, HCV and GBV-C/HGV infection in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). A total of 43 subjects (26 males and 17 females, mean age 59.0 years old) consisting of 33 NHL and ten ALL patients were studied. All serum samples were tested for HBsAg, anti-HBc, HBV-DNA, anti-HCV, HCV-RNA and GBV-C/HGV-RNA. We compared these patients with two sets of control subjects. Control subjects (1) consisted of 45 age and sex matched subjects who underwent colonoscopy from July 1995 to June 1996, and control subjects (2) consisted of 10599 subjects who received a general medical check-up in Toyama prefecture. HBsAg, anti-HBc and HBV-DNA were detected in the serum of 1/33 (3.0%), 15/33 (45.5%), and 0/33 (0%) of NHL patients, and 1/10 (10.0%), 5/10 (50.0%), and 1/10 (10.0%) of ALL patients, respectively. No significant differences were detected among each group compared with control subjects (1). Anti-HCV and HCV-RNA were detected in the serum of 4/33 (12.1%) NHL patients, but in none of the ten ALL patients. In contrast, none of the control subjects tested positive for both anti-HCV and HCV-RNA while 2/45 (4.4%) were positive for anti-HCV. Thus, the positive rate of HCV-RNA in NI-IL patients showed a tendency to be high compared with control subjects (1). GBV-C/HGV-RNA was not detected in the serum of lymphoproliferative disorders patients or control subjects (1). In NHL patients, the positive rate of anti-I-ICV was significantly higher than that of control subjects (2) (P < 0.01). The result of this study provides evidence of the high prevalence of HCV infection in patients with NHL in Toyama prefecture in Japan as well as in European countries. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.