Prevalence of hepatitis B virus in primary central nervous system lymphoma.

Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma (PCNSL) is most often non-Hodgkin lymphoma diffuse large B cell lymphoma (NHL-DLBCL) confined exclusively to the central nervous system. Its pathogenesis remains unknown in immunocompromised patients. Recent studies pointed out that systemic NHL, especially B cell NHL, might be associated with Hepatitis B virus (HBV) [1, 2]. We thus reported the prevalence of HBV in immunocompetent patients with PCNSL and search for a possible association. We included 109 patients treated for PCNSL in our department in Paris, France, from 2002 to 2012. The inclusion criteria were: (i) aged C18 years, (ii) pathologically documented diagnosis of ocular or cerebral DLBC-PCNSL, (iii) HIV seronegative and (iv) available HBV serology. The control population included 319 patients treated in the same Department, from 1993 to 2011, for other primary brain tumors (PBT) and with available HBV serology. We compared prevalence of HBsAg, anti-HBc and anti-HBs between these populations using a Fischer’s test (STATA 8.0, Woolf test). We also compared prevalence of HBsAg and anti-HBc in the PCNSL group to the French and greater Paris’ area (GPA) populations using an exact test based on binomial probability function [3]. The characteristics of the PCNSL and the PBT populations are reported in Table 1. Prevalence of HBsAg was greater among the PCNSL patients than within the French population (p = 0.01) and the GPA population (p = 0.02). In addition, prevalence of anti-HBc in the PCNSL patients was higher than within the French population (p = 0.01). Although no statistically significant difference was found between PCNSL and PBT patients (p = 0.49 regarding HBsAg, p = 0.10 regarding anti-HBc and p = 0.23 regarding anti-HBs), a trend for a positive association between HBV and PCNSL was highlighted. Regarding active (p = 0.49) and past infections (p = 0.10) and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11060-015-1879-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.