VACCINE

Cancer Investigation • April 2006
High prevalence of SV40 infection
in patients with nodal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
but not acute leukemia independent of
contaminated polio vaccines in Taiwan
Author information
Chen PM1, Yen CC, Yang MH, Poh SB, Hsiao LT, Wang WS,
Lin PC, Lee MY, Teng HW, Bai LY, Chu CJ, Chao SC,
Yang AH, Chiou TJ, Liu JH, Chao TC.
Division of Medical Oncology
Department of Medicine, Taipei Veteran General Hospital
Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
Abstract
Recent studies have linked simian virus 40 (SV40) to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
(NHL), especially in countries in which people were exposed to contaminated
polio vaccines prior to 1963. In Taiwan, nearly all children were not exposed to
contaminated polio vaccine during this period; the relationship between SV40
infection and hematological malignancies is unclear and deserves to be studied.
Using PCR amplification of SV40 large T antigen DNA, confirmed by Southern
blot hybridization and sequence analysis, 91 frozen lymph nodes from NHL
patients were examined. Thirteen (14.3 percent) showed positive for SV40. All
other test samples, including diagnostic bone marrow from patients with acute
leukemia, peripheral blood from 10 relatives of SV40 positive-patients and 91
age-matched normal volunteers, and 5 reactive hyperplastic lymphoid tissues,
showed negative. These results may reflect that human-to-human transmission of
SV40 is independent of contaminated polio vaccines; and SV40 is possibly associated
with the development of NHL in Taiwan (p = 0.0001). Prospective studies
are needed to determine the prevalence of SV40 infections in our and other human
populations and to explore the means of transmission of the virus.
“These results may reflect
that human-to-human transmission
of SV40 is independent of contaminated
polio vaccines; and SV40 is possibly
associated with the development of
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in Taiwan ...”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16809147