Epstein Barr virus DNA analysis in blood predicts disease progression in a rare case of plasmablastic lymphoma with effusion

BACKGROUND: In HIV-1-infected patients a long lasting CD4+ cell decline influences the host-EBV balance and thereby increases the risk for EBV related malignancies. In spite of a world-wide access to combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) there are still a considerable number of HIV-1-infected patients who will develop severe immunodeficiency. These undiagnosed HIV-1 infected patients, so called late testers, demonstrate an increased lymphoma risk, compared to patients diagnosed early. Consecutive individual screening for EBV DNA-load in late testers might be a useful predictor of emerging EBV-malignancy. METHODS: Patient biopsies and ascites were analyzed morphologically, by immuncyto-histochemistry and in-situ hybridization. Viral DNA and RNA load were quantified by PCR. Cell lines from primary tumor and from ascites, were established in vitro and further analyzed. RESULT: We here report on a case of EBV-positive lymphoma in an AIDS patient, first presenting with pleural effusion and ascites and was thus initially considered a primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) but was later diagnosed as a plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL). The patient had responded to cART with undetectable HIV-RNA and increased CD4 cell count one year prior to lymphoma presentation. At the time of lymphoma diagnosis the HIV-RNA values were <50 RNA-copies per mL blood (undetectable) and the CD4-positive cell count 170 ×10(6)/L. The lymphoma was CD45-negative and weakly CD22- and CD30-positive. The patient had a history of Kaposi sarcoma and HHV-8 seropositivity. The lymphoma biopsies, and three cell lines derived on different occasions from the tumor cell effusion, were all EBV-positive but HHV-8 negative. A noticeable EBV-DNA load decline was observed during the remission of the lymphoma following CHOP-therapy. The EBV-DNA load increased dramatically at the time of recurrence. CONCLUSION: EBV DNA load might be useful in monitoring the effect of lymphoma treatment as well as in estimating the risk of EBV-associated lymphoma in HIV-1 infected patients with pronounced immunosuppression.