Human herpesvirus-8 DNA in patients with certain demyelinating disorders
Infectious etiology of the demyelinating diseases is an intensive matter of research. Among the suspected pathogens, herpesviruses had attracted particular attention because of their capacity to remain latent in nervous tissues, axonal transportation of some members within neurons, relapsing-remitting characteristic of the infections, and capability of inducing demyelination both in human host and animal models. Human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) is the least studied of this group even some of the HHV-8 related disorders such as HIV associated Castleman's disease, some lymphomas, monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance (MGUS), may be seen in patients with demyelinating conditions. The aim of this study was the investigation of a probable relationship between HHV-8 infection and certain demyelinating diseases. For this purpose, the presence of HHV-8 DNA has been investigated by polymerase chain reaction in the blood samples of 14 multiple sclerosis (MS), six chronic inflammatory demyelinizing polyneuropathy (CIDP), three Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), and one Miller-Fisher syndrome patients, together with 24 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects as control. As a result, one of MS, two of CIDP and all of the GBS patients were found HHV-8 DNA positive, whereas all the subjects in control group were negative. Although the interpretation of the results of this study does not seem to be possible owing to the limited number of patients, it emphasizes the need for larger scale, detailed studies on this subject since no other report dealing with this matter has been encountered in the literature.