Comparison of three methods for the detection of Epstein-Barr virus in Hodgkin's lymphoma in paraffin-embedded tissues.

The percentage rate of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive cases of Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) ranges between 20 and 70% in various studies worldwide. To further explore the definite rate in China, three methods, including immunohistochemistry for EBV latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), in situ hybridization (ISH) for EBV-encoded RNA (EBER)-l and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for EBV BamHI-W fragment, were employed to detect EBV in 59 cases of HL in China using paraffin-embedded tissue samples. Our results revealed that the PCR method presented the highest (44/59, 74.6%) detection rate among the three methods. The other two methods identified 66.1% (39/59, LMP1) and 67.8% (40/59, EBER1 ISH) EBV-positive results, respectively. Three samples were positive for LMP1 but negative when using EBER I ISH, while another four samples were EBER I-positive but LMP1-negative. Of the four major histopathological subtypes of HL, the lymphocyte predominant (LR) subtype is the one most frequently associated with EBV, followed by the mixed cellularity (MC), nodular sclerosis (NS) and lymphocyte depletion (LD) subtypes. Our results also indicated the seldomly reported fact that EBV-positive cases in children were more numerous than those of adults with HL.