Detection of ebstain barr virus (EBV) in women with breast cancer in Iraq using in situ hybridization and immunohistochemical technique

Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) has been recently shown to be present in human breast cancer worldwide, which could play an important role in the initiation and progression of this cancer, which includes gastric most cancers nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and bladder most cancers and has been recently linked with breast cancer. The study aimed to detect the presence of Epstein-Barr Virus Nuclear Antigen-1 (EBNA-1) and encoded RNA (EBER) with tumors of the breast in a group of Iraqi women diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) and to correlate expression results with the age of the participants and with the grade, type, size and others clinicopathological finding of breast cancer. A total of 50 formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue of IDC (92%) and ILC (8%) biopsy samples as cases group and 30 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues of non-cancerous breast tissue as controls group were collected to detect the presence of EBV protein (EBER) in breast tissue using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH) method. The EBER RNA signals were detected in 31 (62%). In control group EBER RNA signals were detected in 3 (10%) of the controls, Significant differences (P<0.04) were found between the study groups regarding EBV EBER RNA positive signals. While the study showed by IHC the signals were detected as nuclear brown staining in 34 (68%) of the breast carcinoma cases. 3 (10%) in control group .Significant differences (P<0.03) were found between the study groups regarding nuclear brown staining of tumor cells signals. As well as IHC and CISH was found to be a sensitive technique in the detection of EBV. Conclusions: The study reveals that the EBNA-1 and EBV EBER RNA was over expressed in our population cohort