Epstein‐barr virus and human malignancies

EBV has remained the foremost contender for “the first human cancer virus.” It is the cause of infectious mononucleosis, which has been considered a self‐limited leukemia. Self‐limitation could fail to materialize on rare occasions and, indeed, evidence has been mounting for an etiologic role of EBV in Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) of African children, for which an infectious cause has been postulated on the basis of epidemiologic observations. EBV might be causally related also to nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). EBV fingerprints are found in nearly every BL or NPC biopsy; EBV transforms lymphocytes in vitro into permanently growing lymphoblasts resembling BL cells; EBV induces lympho‐proliferative tumors in certain nonhuman primates; and all African BL and Chinese or other NPC patients have antibodies to various EBV‐determined antigens, often at high titers, whereas controls have lower titers of some of the antibodies and lack others. Changes in the spectra and titers of antibodies reflect the clinical status and prognosis in BL and the stage of the disease and success of therapy in NPC. These facts oppose a mere passenger role of EBV, but other rare, as yet unknown factors must undoubtedly contribute to expression of its oncogenic potential.