Abstract
A retrospective study of anti-Epstein Barr virus (anti-EBV titers) in the sera of 400 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in Taiwan according to the clinical staging system of American Joint Committee is reported. Of NPC patients, 60% were seropositive (> 1:1640), while such values occurred only in 17.7, 10.9 and 20.6% respectively of normal adults, inflammatory diseases of the nose and throat, and head and neck tumor patients other than NPC (control groups). The geometric mean titer was 1:404 in NPC patients, and 1:116, 1:80 and 1:125 respectively in the three control groups. When 321 patients were staged, the seropositive rate increased successively from 12.5% in Stage I to 77.2% in Stage IV. Statistically, Stage I NPC patients had the same titer as the three control groups and a highly significant difference in chi-square tests from those in other stages. Radiotherapy did not influence the anti-EBV titers much; however, there was a definite decrease of titers in patients 7–18 months postradiotherapy. Thirty patients with recurrent disease and 28 patients with distant metastases demonstrated high positive titers and high geometric mean titers falling between those in Stage III and Stage IV. The correlation between EBV and NPC is discussed.
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