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Letters |15 April 1998

Hepatitis C and B-Cell Lymphoma

Eli Zuckerman, MD; Tsila Zuckerman, MD; Alexandra M. Levine, MD

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  • B'nai Zion Medical Center; Haifi, Israel University of Southern California; Los Angeles, CA 90033
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IN RESPONSE:
We were very interested to see the data from the City of Hope National Medical Center on seroprevalence of HCV infection in patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Investigators at City of Hope have confirmed our finding of the increased prevalence of HCV infection in U.S. patients with lymphoma. Although Kashyap and colleagues state that the somewhat lower prevalence in their institution may be secondary to the lower percentage of black and Hispanic patients, it is important to ascertain whether the HCV-positive patients at City of Hope were, in fact, members of a racial or ethnic minority.
Furthermore, Kashyap and colleagues detected HCV infection in their patients by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to detect only anti-HCV antibodies. They did not use an HCV RNA assay. In our study, 4 of the 26 (15%) HCV-infected patients were positive for HCV RNA and negative for HCV antibody. Assuming a similar rate of HCV-infected patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma without HCV antibodies in the City of Hope study group, we would expect an even higher prevalence of HCV infection (13.5%) among these patients. Moreover, the City of Hope investigators found a prevalence of 11.5% of HCV antibodies in their patients, a prevalence sixfold higher than that in the general U.S. population [1]. The prevalence of HCV infection in our study group was 22%, which is 4.5-fold higher than the prevalence in our controls. Thus, the City of Hope data confirm the high prevalence of HCV infection in patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma found in our study compared with the control group.
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Zuckerman E, Zuckerman T, Levine AM. Hepatitis C and B-Cell Lymphoma. Ann Intern Med. ;128:695. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-128-8-199804150-00023

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Published: Ann Intern Med. 1998;128(8):695.

DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-128-8-199804150-00023

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