Relationship between Human Herpes Virus Type 6 and Childhood T-Cell Leukemia-Lymphoma

Previous studies have pointed to the major role of viruses in the pathogenesis of cancers, especially lymphoproliferative cancers.

The current study investigated the relationship between recent Human Herpesvirus Type 6 (HHV6) infection and childhood leukemia-lymphoma syndrome.

From January 2011 to December 2012, we entered every new case of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, acute myeloblastic leukemia, and Hodgkin lymphoma as the case group (n=48); moreover, 60 patients were randomly selected as controls from hospitalized children withoutinfectious agents and myocarditis in the department of pediatric cardiology in Shiraz, Iran. Immunophenotyping of bone marrow or lymph node biopsy was performed for the case group. The DNA was extracted from all collected samples using a DNA extraction kit (Invitek Company, Germany), and a Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)for the U38 gene of HHV-6 was performed for the detection of the HHV-6 genome for both groups.

In the case group, 48 patients with the age range of 0-18 years were assigned to four subgroups: 1-Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, 2-Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia, 3-Hodgkin Lymphoma, and 4-non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. In the case group, there were four positive HHV-6 PCR patients: One in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, one in Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, and two patients in the Hodgkin Lymphoma subgroup. None of the patients with T-cell leukemia-lymphoma had positive PCR. The frequency of HHV6 PCR positive was not significantly different between the case (8.3%) and control (1.6%)groups (P=0.169). No HHV-6 PCR positive was detected in T-cell leukemia/lymphoma patients.

As evidenced by the results of the present study, HHV-6 infection has nosignificant difference in children with T-Cell leukemia-lymphoma and healthy people.