Hepatitis C infection and B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in British Columbia: A cross-sectional analysis

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in British Columbia. Design: A cross-sectional analysis. Setting: The British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA), a Canadian provincial tertiary oncology referral center. Subjects: Consecutive patients with B-cell NHL registered onto the BCCA lymphoma database in 1996 and part of 1997 and a control group of patients with T-cell NHL registered on the database from 1995 through 1997. Patients with HIV infection were excluded from the analysis. A second control group (n = 1085) consisted of health-care workers tested for HCV infection following a needle-stick injury. Interventions: Stored sera from patients with B-cell NHL (n= 88) and T-cell NHL (n = 37), identified from the database, were tested for the presence of HCV infection with commercially available serologic tests. Main outcome measures: HCV seropositivity in the B-cell lymphoma group compared to the control groups (T-cell NHL and health-care workers). Results: 2.3% of the B-cell NHL group, none of the T-cell NHL group and 1% of the health-care worker control group were positive for HCV infection. These results were not statistically significantly different. Conclusion: Patients in British Columbia with B-cell NHL do not have an increased prevalence of HCV infection. These data suggest that the lymphotrophism of HCV may differ by regional, racial and genotypic variations around the world.