Boston / Oxford / Houston - The murine leukemia virus Xenotropic (XMRV), which causes leukemia and lymphoma in mice is probably harmless to humans, such a number of studies in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (online version) shows.
XMRV discovered in 2002, made headlines in recent months, the headlines. Several research groups have demonstrated viral genes in patients with prostate cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome and transplant recipients under immunosuppression.
This was not least because XMRV belongs to the retrovirus, caused some concern. In July, even an expert meeting dealt with the FDA the possibility that XMRV spread through blood products could.
But the findings of the investigations should now calm things down. The group Athe Tsibris of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has been demonstrated in any of 239 patients with immunological disorders (chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis), immunosuppressed (transplant patients, HIV-infected) or general patient virus traces, and the question is, why the tests at other researchers for up to two thirds of the patients were positive.
The group led by John Frater from the University of Oxford, has screened 230 HIV or hepatitis C-infected individuals, and no virus detected in traces. The absence in these two groups at high risk of transmission through sexual or blood contact contradicts earlier studies that had warned of an incipient pandemic.
Only the group led by Jason Kimata from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, found one. The virologist had examined tissue samples from 144 patients with prostate cancer and detected in 32 (22 percent) XMRV. But this does not mean that the virus is involved in any way in the pathogenesis, especially since it was also present in normal tissue.
Frank Maldarelli and Mary Kearney request from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda Although further studies. They should, however, more critical than ever concerned with the detection method or a possible contamination in the laboratory. © heat / aerzteblatt.de
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