Prevalence of hepatitis B and hepatitis C viral infections in various subtypes of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma: confirmation of the association with splenic marginal zone lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) ranked as the sixth most common cancer in 2016. Its incidence has steadily increased in the past decade. Both environmental and genetic factors can promote the development of NHL. It has been hypothesized that chronic antigenic stimulation, especially due to a virus such as the human immunodeficiency virus, Epstein-Barr virus and hepatitis C virus (HCV), plays an important role in the pathogenesis of NHL. Previous data indicated that hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is associated with B-cell NHL (B-NHL) in HBV-prevalent areas such as Japan and Korea. However, studies that systematically evaluate the prevalence of HBV and HCV infections in each B-NHL subtype are rare. In this study, we aimed to illustrate the distribution of hepatitis virus infection in a large series of B-NHL patients in China, a region in which hepatitis virus infection is prevalent. In total, 733 newly diagnosed indolent patients and 148 aggressive B-NHL patients with integrated HBV and HCV results were unselectively enrolled in this study. The diagnosis criterion was in accordance with the World Health Organization Classification of Tumors of Hematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. The B-NHL subtypes are shown in Table 1. HBs-Ag and antiHCVAb-positive patients were considered to have HBV and HCV infection, respectively. To compare the hepatitis viral infection data with that of the normal population, we referenced the recent epidemiological investigation of the hepatitis viral infection in China, which enrolled 81 775 residents with HBV and 78 746 residents with HCV. With regard to HBV infection status, 9.0% of the patients (79/881) were HBs-Ag-positive, which was significantly higher than the proportion in the general population, as shown in Table 1.