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Association Between Hepatitis C Virus and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas

Hospital Clínica Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, Spain

To the Editor:

In the February 20, 2006, issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Besson et al¹ reported that the Groupe d'Etude des Lymphomes de l'Adulte found differences in clinical presentation and worsened prognosis in 26 patients with diffuse large-cell lymphoma (DLCL) and hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) compared with DLCL HCV-negative patients. Only patients who were included in the clinical trial were studied and the prevalence in the population selected was 0.5%. Our group examined 114 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who were not selected, except for the exclusion of patients who were seropositive against the AIDS virus and parenteral drug addicts. We detected 15 HCV positives (13%). We did not find significant differences in relation to the presence or absence of HCV infection in the clinical presentation, nor did we find any association between high- or low-malignancy grade. We did find a significant difference in global survival between the eight DLCL patients who were HCV positive (75% at 2 years; 95% CI, 45% to 100%) and the 50 DLCL patients who were HCV negative (94% at 2 years; 95% CI, 87% to 100%; P = .022). We found no relation between HCV infection and survival in the rest of the patients grouped as low-grade lymphomas. In our experience the percentage of HCV infection is similar in high- and low-grade lymphomas, and prognosis is no worse in the latter. We found a greater prevalence of HCV infection and lymphomas than that reported for the selected population studied by Groupe d'Etude des Lymphomes de l'Adulte.

Authors' Disclosures of Potential Conflicts of Interest
The authors indicated no potential conflicts of interest.

REFERENCES

1. Besson C, Canioni D, Lepage E, et al: Characteristicis and outcome of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in hepatitis C virus-positive patients in LNH 93 and LNH 98 Groupe d'Etude des Lymphomes de l'Ádulte Programs. J Clin Oncol 24:953-960, 2006[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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  Caroline Besson, Francois Lefrere, Felipe Suarez, Felix Reyes, and Olivier Hermine
  JCO 2006 24: 3513-3514 [Full Text]

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