Epstein Barr virus expression in Argentine breast carcinoma

GASS, H.; PAOLA ANDREA CHABAY; DE MATTEO, E; GONZALEZ, P.; FELER, M. F.; ACTIIS, A.; PRECIADO, M. V.

Chicago

Congreso; American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2003; 2003

American Society of Clinical Oncology

Epstein Barr virus (EBV) is associated to several lymphoid malignancies and nasopharyngeal carcinoma and recently with gastric and lung carcinomas. In Argentina, EBV first infection occurs in infants. As breast cancer is a very common malignancy in women, a pathogenic role of EBV for even a subgroup of patients could be significant for its etiology and prevention. Our aim was to study EBV breast carcinoma association and to compare clinical profiles of EBV-negative and EBV-positive patients. We analyzed formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded breast biopsies of 69 female patients with breast carcinoma and fresh tumor tissue from 39 of them (age range: 35-96 years, median: 58 years). As controls we studied 40 biopsies of benign breast tumors with no atypia and 8 normal breast tissue of female patients from the same geographic settings. EBV infected cells were identified by immunohistochemistry (IHC) with MAb against EBNA-1. EBV DNA was amplified by PCR, with primers covering EBER and BamHIW regions. Cases were classified by tumor histology (ductal: grade I, II, III or lobular), clinical stage (I, II, III, IV), lymph node metastasis (present or absent) and estrogen receptor status (positive or negative). EBNA-1 granular nuclear expression was observed in a fraction of tumor epithelial cells in 24/69 (35%) cases and in no control tissue. We confirmed both all IHC results by PCR. EBV was equally distributed among positive and negative steroid hormone receptors (30 vs. 31%), pre and postmenopausal (36 vs. 34%), and more frequently detected in cases without lymph node metastasis (44%). EBV distribution among clinical stages was similar; namely 38%, 38% and 36% grade I, II and III respectively. Our results demonstrated the presence and expression of EBV restricted to epithelial tumor cells in a large subset of. EBV role in breast carcinomas remains to be clarified and the clinical implications of its presence need further studies.