Radwa Hussein Mohamed Ghoraba
Alexandria University, Egypt
Title: Quantitative analysis of human herpes virus 6 dna in patients treated for acute leukemia
Biography
Biography: Radwa Hussein Mohamed Ghoraba
Abstract
Viral infections are important causes of morbidity and mortality for patients with a hematological malignancy, but the true incidence and consequences of viral infections for these patients who undergo conventional non transplant therapy are inadequately defined. Viral infections in hematological patients may result from reactivation of latent infection or, rarely, from acquisition of a new infection. Thus, screening of patients with hematological malignancies for HHV-6 might be considered mandatory. The aim of this study was to evaluate a possible association between Human Herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) infection and acute leukemia in adults after receiving chemotherapy treatment for acute leukemia. The patients were divided into two main groups according to the type of leukemia, All patients with newly diagnosed acute leukemia were subjected to history taking, complete clinical examination and routine laboratory investigations. Peripheral blood samples (Whole blood specimens) were collected from all patients for quantitative determination of HHV6 DNA viral load by Taqman probe technique (real time PCR) at day 0 and day 100 of induction chemotherapy after being extracted on day of sampling. Data were fed to the computer and analyzed using IBM SPSS software package version 20.0. (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp). The results argued against an etiological relationship between HHV-6 infection and the genesis of acute leukemia in adults, however, it supports the hypothesis of viral latency and the possibility of virus reactivation in immunocompromised hosts. The possible presence of HHV-6 as an associated or a putative causative agent in leukemia should however be considered.