T‐ and B‐cell clonality and frequency of human herpes viruses‐6, ‐8 and Epstein Barr virus in angioimmunoblastic T‐cell lymphoma

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Angioimmunoblastic T‐cell lymphoma (T‐AIL) is a peripheral T‐cell lymphoma of unknown etiology. Previous clonality studies have shown a heterogeneous composition of this disease with varying restrictions of B‐ and T‐cell populations in the tumour. For the first time in a single study and in the same pathological materials, we have analysed, lymphoid cell clonality and occurrence of human herpes viruses and Epstein Barr virus. Of 18 cases 12 (66.6%) had clonal T‐ and three (16.6%) had clonal B‐cells. Presence of the lymphotropic viral genome of HHV6 was detected in four of 18 lymph node biopsies from T‐AIL patients (22%), all were TCRγ clonal. No HHV8 were found. Epstein Barr genome was found in 40% of cases. There was no significant association between T‐cell clonality and HHV‐6 or EBV infection, or between B‐cell clonality and any virus infection. We conclude that T‐AIL is a biologically and clinically heterogeneous entity whose true nature remains to be clarified. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.