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Copyright 1998 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved. Applicable FARS/DFARS Restrictions Apply to Government Use.
We read with great interest the article by Memar et al1 reporting the presence of human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) DNA in tissue samples of 4 of 6 pemphigus vulgaris and in all 6 pemphigus foliaceus lesions. We performed a similar study analyzing 15 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded skin lesions from 12 patients with pemphigus vulgaris and 2 patients with pemphigus foliaceus. We tested for HHV-8 DNA using a nested polymerase chain reaction assay, with oligonucleotide primers of the ORF26 gene region.2 In addition, the presence of appropriate DNA was verified in all samples by testing for the human β-globin gene. We were unable to detect HHV-8 DNA in any of the 15 tissue specimens analyzed, although we have previously shown that this assay detects HHV-8 DNA in all Kaposi sarcoma biopsy samples tested.2
To further analyze a putative association between HHV-8 infection and pemphigus vulgaris/foliaceus, we tested 20 serum samples of patients with pemphigus disease (including 7 patients whose skin lesions have been tested for the presence of HHV-8 DNA) using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay based on the recombinant HHV-8 protein 65.2.3 None of these 20 patients (15 with pemphigus vulgaris and 5 with pemphigus foliaceus) had anti–HHV-8 antibodies. In contrast, using this assay, anti–HHV-8 antibodies were detected in 15 (88.2%) of 17 patients with Kaposi sarcoma.
In conclusion, we were unable to find HHV-8 DNA in pemphigus lesions using polymerase chain reaction or evidence of previous infection with HHV-8 by detecting anti–HHV-8 antibodies in patients with pemphigus vulgaris/foliaceus. Therefore, our data do not confirm a significant association between HHV-8 and pemphigus vulgaris/foliaceus.
The recombinant human herpesvirus 8 protein 65.2 was provided by T. F. Schulz, BSc, Liverpool, England.
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
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