association of hhv-6 with hodgkin and non hodgkin lymphoma

background and objectives: human herpes 6 virus (hhv-6) could remain latent and chronic in the host cells after primary infection. hhv-6 genome encodes certain trans activation proteins which may results in development of malignantlymphoma. the association of human herpes six virus (hhv-6) infection and hodgkin and non-hodgkin lymphomas is strongly supported by epidemiological studies. the aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hhv-6 among the patients with hodgkin, non- hodgkin`s lymphoma. materials and methods: overall 44 blocks of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded of the patients including 22(50%) hodgkin and 22(50%) non-hodgkin lymphoma were collected. initially the section of 5μm-thickness were prepared from the formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue blocks. then the deparaphinazation was carried out for each sample. the dna was extracted, followed by nested pcr for detection of hhv-6. based on pcr product size and sequencing, the hhv-6 a or b subtypes were characterized. results: 12/22(54.54%) cases of hodgkin and 8/22 (36.36%) non-hodgkin’s lymphoma were shown as positive for hhv-6. out of 12 positive hhv-6 in hodgkin lymphoma, 10 patients (45.45%) belonged to variant a while 2 cases (9.09%) were found positive for both hhv-6a and hhv-6b. all the non hodgkin samples (n=8, 36.36%) showed positive for hhv-6 variant a. conclusion: high prevalence of hhv-6 was found among the patients with hodgkin and non-hodgkin’s lymphoma. two patients with hodgkin lymphoma had mixed hhv-6a and hhv-6b infections. it is recommended patients with hodgkin and non-hodgkin should be screened for hhv-6 detection before chemotherapy.