ABSTRACT
Cytomegalo is a ubiquitous virus, it presents an asymptomatic infection in the immunocompetent host, but in an immunocompromised patient, it causes morbidity and sometimes mortality in these types of patients.
This study investigates cytomegalovirus IgG among cancer patients attending Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria.
A total of 267 samples were collected for the study. 178 samples were collected from cancer patients and 89 samples from non-cancer patients (controls). Demographic and other clinic information of the patients were taken into account using the questionnaire.
Samples were collected for a of three months. The case studies were histopathologically confirmed cancer cases and a population from non-cancer . Blood samples were collected in a sterile plain container, centrifuged, and sera were obtained.
These sera were stored in the freezer until all the 267 samples were collected. Sera samples were screened against CMV IgG, HIV, and Total Human IgG with Cytomegalovirus IgG ELISA kits, “Determine” HIV test strip as well as Total human IgG kits respectively. Student T-tests and One-way ANOVA were used as statistical tools for the analysis of the result.
Demographic generated in this study reveals that females have a higher number of cancer cases than males, adults of age 40years and above have the highest cancer cases. And marital status, educational status, place of residence does not pose as risk factors for cancers.
The study further reveals that mean CMV IgG titers of cancer patients varied significantly to that of the control population (non-cancer patients). Cervical cancer was to have the highest prevalence followed by breast cancer, then nasopharyngeal cancer.
Oropharyngeal cancer was found to have the highest mean CMV IgG. The cancer patients that were diagnosed with HIV had the highest mean Total Human IgG. Based on the results obtained, the study recommends combined treatment of CMV as well as other therapeutic measures for better management of cancer patients.
Patients with immunosuppressive diseases should be screened against vii CMV. Antenatal patients should also be screened against CMV and if infected the patients should be treated to prevent mother-to-child transmission.
INTRODUCTION
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) (from the Greek words cyto-, “cell”, and megalo “large”) is a virus of the family Herpesviridae. The species that infects humans is commonly known as human CMV (HCMV) or human herpesvirus-5 (HHV-5), and is the most studied of all cytomegaloviruses (Ryan and Ray, 2004).
Within Herpesviridae, CMV belongs to the Betaherpesvirinae subfamily, which also includes the genera Muromegalovirus and Roseolovirus (HHV-6 and HHV-7) (Moore et al., 2007).
It is related to other herpesviruses within the subfamilies of Alphaherpesvirinae that include herpes simplex viruses (HSV)-1 and -2 and varicella-zoster virus (VZV), and the Gammaherpesvirinae subfamily that includes Epstein–Barr virus (Ryan and Ray, 2004).
All herpesviruses share a characteristic ability to remain latent within the body over long periods. Although they may be found throughout the body. CMV infections are frequently associated with the salivary glands in humans and other mammals (Moore et al., 2007).
Other CMV viruses are found in several mammal species, but species isolated from animals differ from HCMV in terms of genomic structure and have not been reported to cause human disease. HCMV infects more than 40-60% of the general population and up to 100% within some subpopulations and/or geographic areas (Astegiano et al., 2010).
CMV infection most commonly develops between ages 10-35 years and most people are exposed to CMV early in life and do not realize it because they have no symptoms.
HCMV has been reported to induce genetic alterations that can potentially enhance the genotoxicity of environmental factors (radiation, chemicals, etc.) (Albert, 1989).
The oncogenic properties may also stem from the ability of HCMV to transactivate proto-oncogenes, which results in mutations in these normal cells that can then lead to cancer development (Boldogh,
1990). Sonadgol et al., (2011) compared CMV prevalence with the total immunoglobulin pattern of some patients with multiple sclerosis, they obtained a prevalence rate of 25%.
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