Clinical and virological characteristics of 15 patients with chronic active Epstein-Barr virus infection treated with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
BACKGROUND
Chronic active Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is characterized by recurrent infectious mononucleosis-like symptoms, and infected patients have high viral loads in their peripheral blood. Standard therapy for the disease has not yet been established. Recently, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has been introduced and has the potential to become a standard treatment, although guidelines for HSCT to treat chronic active EBV infection have not yet been proposed.


METHODS
Fifteen patients were retrospectively analyzed, both clinically and virologically, to investigate the factors associated with prognosis of chronic active EBV infection treated with HSCT.


RESULTS
After HSCT, 7 patients died after survival periods that ranged from 1 to 16 months (mean duration of survival after HSCT, 5 months). Three patients were considered to have died of transplantation-related complications. The duration between infection onset and diagnosis was significantly longer in patients who died than in those who survived. Five of the 7 patients who died experienced > or =3 life-threatening complications. The plasma concentrations of interferon-gamma, interleukin-10, thrombomodulin, and soluble E-selectin did not differ significantly between the groups of patients. With regard to sequence variations in the EBV latent membrane protein 1 gene, no specific patterns were found in the patients who died. Importantly, the plasma EBV load at diagnosis was significantly higher in patients who died than in living patients. Moreover, plasma viral load was shown to be an important factor to monitor during follow-up for patients after HSCT.


CONCLUSIONS
The number of life-threatening complications and plasma viral load are indicative of the stage of disease progression and may be useful factors for predicting the outcome of HSCT.
Gotoh
Kensei
K
Department of Pediatrics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan.
Ito
Yoshinori
Y
Shibata-Watanabe
Yukiko
Y
Kawada
Jun-ichi
J
Takahashi
Yoshiyuki
Y
Yagasaki
Hiroshi
H
Kojima
Seiji
S
Nishiyama
Yukihiro
Y
Kimura
Hiroshi
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019040:E-Selectin / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D004854:Herpesvirus 4, Human / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007244:Infectious Mononucleosis / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy / Q000821:virology*; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000097:blood; D016753:Interleukin-10 / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D018180:Thrombomodulin / Q000097:blood; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D019562:Viral Load; D014763:Viral Matrix Proteins / Q000235:genetics
D019040:E-Selectin; C037662:EBV-associated membrane antigen, Epstein-Barr virus; D018180:Thrombomodulin; D014763:Viral Matrix Proteins; D016753:Interleukin-10; D007371:Interferon-gamma