Epstein-Barr virus-related Hodgkin's disease showing B cell lineage in an immunosuppressive patient seropositive for HTLV-I

A case of Hodgkin's disease (HD), lymphocyte depression (LD) type in an immunosuppressive patient is described. The patient was a 48-year-old male and his parents were born in the Kyushu area, which is an endemic area for adult T cell lymphomaleukemia (ATL). He was seropositive for ATL virus (ATLV, also referred to as HTLV-I) and showed a marked immunosuppressive condition. He developed LD-HD and Pheumocystis carinii pneumonia, and died due to respiratory failure. The immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization analyses revealed that the Reed-Sternberg-like cells in the lymph mode biopsy sample were positive for Ber-H2 (CD30), Leu-M1 (CD15), L-26 (CD20), Bcl-2, p53 and EBER, the vital genome of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV).