Molecular epidemiology of Epstein–Barr virus in gastric cancer patients compared to healthy control group in Shiraz, Iran

Abstract Gastric cancer (GC) is the third leading cause of cancer‐related mortality worldwide. The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) may play a role in certain cases of GC. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of EBV in the gastric tissue of both gastric cancer patients and non‐cancer patients in Shiraz, Iran. In this cross‐sectional study, 159 formalin‐fixed paraffin‐embedded (FFPE) tissues from gastric cancer patients and 137 from non‐cancer patients were assessed. All samples were assessed using PCR on the β‐globin gene. The nested PCR method was used to investigate the presence of the EBNA‐1‐EBV gene. The results were analysed using chi‐squared statistical tests. The mean age of the GC group and the control group was 62.08 ± 13.45 and 63.97 ± 9.13. In the GC and control groups, 33.33% (53/159) and 35.04% (48/137) were female. The results showed that in the cancer group, 1.88% (3/159) of tissue samples were positive for EBV, while this statistic was 22.62% (31/137) for non‐cancer samples ( p < .0001). All EBV‐positive cancer patients were female with a mean age of 64.66 ± 7.37 while in the control group, 20.83% (10/48) of females and 23.59% (21/89) of males were positive for EBV, which was not statistically significant ( p = .832). The low frequency of EBV infection in GC tissue might indicate the ‘hit and run’ mechanism of EBV in GC carcinogenesis. Additionally, the abundance of B lymphocytes in the inflamed samples of the healthy control group might influence the high frequency of EBV in this group. More investigations are recommended to verify these results.