Molecular epidemiology of Epstein–Barr virus in gastric cancer patients compared to healthy control group in Shiraz, Iran

Gastric cancer (GC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) may play a role in certain cases of GC. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of EBV in the gastric tissue of both gastric cancer patients and non-cancer patients in Shiraz, Iran. In this cross-sectional study, 159 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues from gastric cancer patients and 137 from non-cancer patients were assessed. All samples were assessed using PCR on the β-globin gene. The nested PCR method was used to investigate the presence of the EBNA-1-EBV gene. The results were analysed using chi-squared statistical tests. The mean age of the GC group and the control group was 62.08 ± 13.45 and 63.97 ± 9.13. In the GC and control groups, 33.33% (53/159) and 35.04% (48/137) were female. The results showed that in the cancer group, 1.88% (3/159) of tissue samples were positive for EBV, while this statistic was 22.62% (31/137) for non-cancer samples (p < .0001). All EBV-positive cancer patients were female with a mean age of 64.66 ± 7.37 while in the control group, 20.83% (10/48) of females and 23.59% (21/89) of males were positive for EBV, which was not statistically significant (p = .832). The low frequency of EBV infection in GC tissue might indicate the ‘hit and run’ mechanism of EBV in GC carcinogenesis. Additionally, the abundance of B lymphocytes in the inflamed samples of the healthy control group might influence the high frequency of EBV in this group. More investigations are recommended to verify these results.