Low prevalence of human T cell lymphotropic virus type 1 infection in patients with gastric cancer.
OBJECTIVE
There have been few studies on the association between human T cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection and cancer risk. It is still controversial whether or not HTLV-1 infection affects the incidence of several cancers. With this background, we aimed to evaluate the relationship between HTLV-1 infection and the occurrence of several types of cancers.


METHODS
Subjects were 699 patients with cancer aged 50 years and older diagnosed between 1991 and 2004 at the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Ryukyu University Hospital, Okinawa, Japan, and 1365 control patients without cancer. The association between HTLV-1 infection and cancer (biliary tract, pancreatic, esophageal, gastric, colorectal, liver, and lung cancers) was analyzed by logistic regression analysis adjusted for age and sex.


RESULTS
The infection rate of HTLV-1 in patients with gastric cancer was significantly lower than in controls (P = 0.01, adjusted odds ratio 0.46). The infection rate of HTLV-1 was not associated with increased or decreased risk of cancers other than gastric cancer.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study indicated that the prevalence of HTLV-1 infection in patients with gastric cancer appears to be significantly lower than that in control patients.
Hirata
Tetsuo
T
Division of Control and Prevention of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan.
Nakamoto
Manabu
M
Nakamura
Masamoto
M
Kinjo
Nagisa
N
Hokama
Akira
A
Kinjo
Fukunori
F
Fujita
Jiro
J
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000150:complications* / Q000821:virology*