Epstein-Barr virus infection in adult patients in a hospital of Ningxia

Objective To investigate the status and clinical features of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in adult patients in a hospital of Ningxia. Methods A total of 1 955 adult patients with suspected EBV infection in General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University were analyzed during May 2016 to December 2017, and EBV DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. Results There were 538 adult patients with EBV infection and the positive rate was 27.52%. The viral load of positive specimens was 5.68×104 copies/mL. The positive rates of male and female samples were 28.66% (331/1 155) and 25.88% (207/800) respectively, and the difference had no statistical significance (χ2=1.835, P>0.05) . The positive rate of the elderly group > 65 years old (37.39%, 89/238) was the highest, which was significantly different from other groups (χ2=25.411, P<0.05) . EBV infection could be seen in various departments, with 204 cases (37.92%) in infection department, 126 cases (23.42%) in radiotherapy department, and 53 cases (9.86%) in oncology department. The positive rates of EBV infection among these departments had statistically significant differences (χ2=37.858, P<0.01) . The main clinical diagnoses were nasopharyngeal carcinoma (19.52%) , chronic active hepatitis (12.08%) and lymphoma (9.48%) , while the main clinical manifestations were fever (10.78%) and abnormal liver function (8.55%) . Conclusions Adult patients with EBV infection are not exactly the same in gender, age, viral load, clinical department distribution, clinical diagnosis and performance. It is helpful for disease diagnosis to detect EBV DNA. Key words: Infections; Epstein-Barr virus; Adult patients; Clinical features