Internal Medicine: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Lack of Association of Human Herpesvirus 6 (hHV-6) with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Leukemic Low-Grade B-Cell Lymphomas

Panagiotis Diamantopoulos, Christina-Nefeli Kontandreopoulou, Theodoros Vassilakopoulos, Maria Angelopoulou, Marina Mantzourani, Nora-Athina Viniou, Nikolaos Spanakis and Athanasios Galanopoulos

Background: The oncogenicity of Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) is a matter of continuous interest and several studies have tried to define its pathogenetic role in malignancy with conflicting results.
Patients and Methods: We investigated the presence of HHV-6 DNA in peripheral blood samples of patients with immune-phenotypically confirmed chronic lymphocytic leukemia and low-grade B-cell lymphomas by quantitative real-time PCR for the U57 gene of the virus.
Results: None out of 48 patients was found positive for HHV-6 (CLL, 60.4%; splenic marginal zone lymphoma, 25.0%; hairy cell leukemia, 4.2%; mantle cell lymphoma, 8.3%; follicular lymphoma, 2.1%).
Conclusion: The seroprevalence and PCR detection rate of HHV-6 is relatively high in healthy individuals. This is the lowest percentage of HHV-6 DNA detection reported to date in patients’ samples, supporting a lack of contribution of the virus in the malignant transformation in CLL and leukemic low-grade B-cell lymphomas.