title: Prevalence of human endogenous retroviral element associates with Hodgkin's lymphoma incidence rates.
abstract: Human endogenous retrovirus-H (HERV-H) is implicated in leukaemias and lymphomas, but the precise molecular mechanism underlying HERV-mediated carcinogenesis remains unknown. We determined the prevalence of HERV-H in a cross-section of the Singapore population and explored the relationship between HERV-H positivity and incidence rates for Hodgkin's lymphoma in three major ethnic groups of Singapore. We observed that Malays were 1.11 times likely (95% CI=1.05-1.17; P<0.01), and Indians 1.12 times likely (95% CI=1.07-1.18; P<0.01) to be HERV-H positive when compared to Chinese. Interestingly, the incidence rates of Hodgkin's lymphoma for the three races positively correlated to the respective prevalence rate for HERV-H positivity (r=0.9921 for male; r=0.9801 for female), suggesting that viral inheritance in human may predispose certain racial origin unfavourably to malignancy.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical & Life Sciences, Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore ; Department of Pathology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Wee Hong
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.affiliation: Dean's Office, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Molecular Diagnosis Centre, Department of Laboratory Medicine, National University Hospital, National University Health System, Singapore.
authors.forename: Sai Mun
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Leong
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore ; Molecular Diagnosis Centre, Department of Laboratory Medicine, National University Hospital, National University Health System, Singapore.
authors.forename: Evelyn Siew-Chuan
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Koay
keywords: Ethnicity; HERV; Lymphoma; Prevalence; Singapore