Epstein-Barr virus serology in early detection and screening of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Abstract

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common cancer among Chinese, especially Southern Chinese; except for a few other ethnic groups with moderate incidence, it is otherwise a rare cancer in the world. NPC has a male dominance of about 3:1 and mainly afflicts people in mid-life. There is now compelling evidences to suggest that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a category I human tumor virus defined by UICC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) in 1997, is a causal agent of NPC and is most likely to be involved in the multi-step and multi-factorial development of NPC. In this article, the role of EBV in pathogenesis of NPC is reviewed briefly, and principle applications of EBV antibodies and EBV DNA as markers of NPC are outlined. Based on current knowledge of EBV antibody responses by NPC and taking available testing technologies into account, serologic screening strategy to facilitate efficient early detection of NPC is formulated.

鼻咽癌是中國人,特別是中國南方人的一種常見癌癥;世界上除其他少數族群具有中等程度的發病率以外,它是一種罕見的癌癥。鼻咽癌多見于男性,男女發病率之比約為3∶1,且好發于中年人。現今已有令人信服的證據,支持EB病毒(國際癌癥研究協會歸屬為第一類人體腫瘤病毒)是鼻咽癌的致病因子,肯定參與鼻咽癌的多階段、多因素發生過程。本文簡要地復閱了EB病毒在鼻咽癌發病機理中的作用,重點地介紹了EB病毒抗體和EB病毒DNA作為鼻咽癌標志的主要應用;根據由鼻咽癌導致的EB病毒抗體反應的現代知識,并考慮到目前可采用的檢測技術,提出了促進有效地早期發現鼻咽癌的血清學篩選策略。