Pathogenicity role of human herpesvirus-8 in patients with acute myeloid leukemia

Certain hematologic cancers, including Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), have been associated with the pathogenicity of human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8). HHV-8’s involvement in acute leukemia patients is yet unclear, nevertheless. The diagnosis, categorization, and course of treatment for acute myelogenous leukemia, an aggressive heterogeneous hematologic malignancy, have changed dramatically in recent years. This study aims to investigate the pathogenicity role of HHV-8 in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) of a group of the Iraqi population. Case–control research has been carried out on 75 fresh blood samples recruited from the Mirjan Teaching Hospital in Al-Hilla City. The studied blood samples were obtained from patients with AML enrolled in this study, whereas control groups in the current study included 75 fresh whole blood. The specimens were collected during the period from June 2023 to February 2024. Conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to identify HHV-8. The results show that the mean age of the patients with AML (48.5 ± 10.23 years) was more than that of the apparently healthy control (46.26 ± 11.21 years). There was a nonsignificant difference between patients with AML and the control group. In addition, the male in this study group constituted 56% (42/75), whereas 44% (33/75) were female. Furthermore, the positive of viral genome extraction was found in 41.3% (31 out of 75 of the specimens with viral genome), whereas 59.7% (44/75) specimens did not contain viral genome. The PCR results showed that in the AML patient group, the rate of HHV-8 infection was 35.4% (11 out of 31 cases). Considering the relatively small numbers included in our results, the positive results lead to the idea that HHV-8 works as a cofactor in the tumor biology of the AML subset under consideration and may have contributed to its development.