Abstract
Phenotype identification and detection of the EBV latent gene by immunohistochemistry with monoclonal antibodies, and detection of EBER RNA by in situ hybridization were performed in nasal NK/T-and T-cell lymphomas diagnosed from 1991 to 2003. Detection of the T-cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangement by PCR was also performed in three of the cases. Of the seven cases of T-cell lymphoma, four were positive for CD56 and were possibly cases of NK/T-cell lymphoma. In relation to the detection of the EBV-encoded genes, while strong positivity was noted for EBNA1 and EBER, all the cases were negative for EBNA2 and ZEBRA. Our study results indicate that nasal NK/T-cell lymphomas strongly possess the characteristics of both NK-and T-cells.
