We examined a boy who revealed intermittent fever, enlarged lymph nodes and hepatosplenomegaly since infancy. He died of diffuse immunoblastic type malignant lymphoma at the age of 10. Virological studies showed that he had antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) with extremely high titers of IgG to viral capsid antigen and early antigen, whereas those to EBV associated nuclear antigen were almost negative. Antibodies to other communicable viruses were not significantly different from those in healthy controls. Since his cellular and humoral immunities were almost normal, immunodeficiency specific to EBV seems to exist in this patient. Dot hybridization using 32P-labeled EBV genome probe revealed that lymph node cells obtained by autopsy contain several EBV genomes per each lymph node cell. These findings strongly suggest the relationship between EBV infection and the pathogenesis of the lymphoma.
