Background: The purpose of this study was to explore urinary Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-DNA as a potential biomarker in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).
Methods: EBV-DNA copies were estimated in plasma/urine of patients with NPC (n = 76) by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) at baseline, during therapy, and at follow-up. Their correlation with EBV-RNA expression in tissues (n = 53) was used to assess sensitivity and specificity of plasma/urine EBV-DNA. Correlation of urine and plasma EBV-DNA with each other and with radiological response was evaluated.
Results: This study demonstrated that urine EBV-DNA has high sensitivity (96%) at diagnosis and it correlates well with plasma EBV-DNA at baseline and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The EBV-DNA copies reduced significantly with therapy (plasma: p < .001; urine: p = .011). Patients with low EBV-DNA copies demonstrated improved survival (plasma: p = .023; urine: p = .083).
Conclusion: Plasma EBV-DNA is a good prognostic marker, whereas further study on a larger cohort may help in developing urine EBV-DNA as a surrogate prognostic marker for patients with NPC. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 38: E1666-E1673, 2016.
Keywords: Epstein-Barr encoding region in situ hybridization (EBER-ISH); nasopharyngeal carcinoma; plasma/urinary Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-DNA; positron emission tomography (PET)-CT; real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.