Diagnosis of Epstein-Barr virus-associated diseases

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a common DNA virus distributed worldwide. Usually the initial infection involves the upper respiratory tract without any problems and almost the entire population more than 25 years old test positive for anti-EBV antibodies. However, EBV often causes not only acute lytic infection but also chronic active infection with B cells and even T cells. In addition the EBV genome has been detected in tumors of hematopoietic or epithelial cell origin such as Burkitt's lymphomas, Hodgkin's disease, NK/T cell lymphomas, nasopharyngeal carcinomas (NPCs) and gastric adenocarcinomas. It is clearly important to make a correct diagnosis for EBV associated diseases and monitor the EBV load in individual patients for an appropriate therapy. In this paper recent advances in serological, immunological and molecular approaches for detection of EBV associated disease are described. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.