Comparison between Conventional Gastric Adenocarcinoma and EBV Associated Gastric Carcinoma

Epstein Barr Virus (EBV or Human herpesvirus 4) belongs to the genus Lymphocryptoviridae, the gamma 1 subtype of the Subfamily Gamma herpes viridae and is one of the most common viruses in humans. It is present in all populations, infecting more than 95% of all individuals within the first four decades of life. In developing countries, infections occur very early in life with no specific characteristics other than the general symptoms of acute viremia. In developed countries however, the infection is usually delayed until adolescence or early childhood years where it causes infectious mononucleosis, a benign self-limiting lymphoproliferative disorder. Though the infection with EBV is benign in the acute stages and latent in the chronic phase in the vast majority of people, the virus has been demonstrated to be involved in the development of many malignancies with the list of such malignancies progressively increasing. The first association was with the endemic Burkitt’s lymphoma. Subsequently, other lymphomas (subtypes of Hodgkin’s and non-hodgkin’s lymphomas) are also known to be associated with EBV infection. Epithelial malignancies such as lymphoepitheliomas of nasopharynx and stomach are included in the list of EBV associated tumors. Tumors arise as a result of genetic and epigenetic alterations produced by the virus, which transforms the normal cell into an immortalized proliferating cell. Since Burke et al first detected EBV in undifferentiated lymphoepithelioma like gastric cancer in 1990, many researches are undertaken to prove the same. EBV expresses latent membrane protein which can be detected immune histochemically. Our study is aimed at detecting the EBV expression in gastric carcinoma cells.