The Clinical Utility of Circulating Epstein-Barr Virus DNA Concentrations in NKT-Cell Lymphoma: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract EN

Background.

Circulating Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA concentrations were reported to have prognostic value for NK/T-cell lymphoma patients in limited small-scale studies.

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the clinical utility of circulating EBV-DNA concentrations to a large sample of NK/T-cell lymphoma patients.

Methods.

We conducted this meta-analysis, which included a total of 15 prospective and retrospective comparable studies to assess the association between pretreatment EBV-DNA (pre-DNA), posttreatment EBV-DNA (post-DNA), and clinical outcomes of NK/T-cell lymphoma patients.

We chose overall survival (OS) as the primary endpoint and progression-free survival (PFS), complete response (CR), and overall response rate (ORR) as secondary endpoints.

Results.

High pre-DNA and detectable post-DNA were both significantly correlated with poorer OS in NK/T-cell lymphoma patients (P<0.05), with hazard radios (HRs) equal to 3.45 and 2.30, respectively.

High pre-DNA and detectable post-DNA also predicted poorer PFS.

Additionally, high pre-DNA was found to be significantly correlated with both worse CR and ORR, which indicated worse treatment response.

Conclusion.

Circulating EBV-DNA concentrations provides prognostic values of survival and treatment response in NK/T-cell lymphoma patients.