ciHHV-6 low in Quebec children with ALL and absent in controls
Researchers from Quebec have investigated the incidence of ciHHV-6 among children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Of all patients analyzed (287), only one (0.35%) was determined to be ciHHV-6 positive, ruling out a possible involvement of ciHHV-6 as causative agent for ALL. Interestingly, none of the 288 controls had evidence of ciHHV6. The lowest ciHHV-6 prevalence previously reported was in Japan, at 0.2%, and in studies with larger samples sizes (>500 subjects) in the US and UK, the prevalence varies between 0.8 -0.85%. The frequency of ciHHV-6 in the Province of Quebec (Canada) therefore appears to be lower than that observed in the US and UK. The authors note that the French-Canadian population is genetically more homogenous than other populations of European descent. A large-scale study involving 20,000 subjects is currently underway to assess whether the incidence of ciHHV-6 in Quebec differs significantly from other regions of the world.
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