Shahid Hassan.
Conventional biopsy to EBV Amplification Kit in quick diagnosis of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma.
Pak J Otolaryngol Jan ;20(3):38-9.

The conventional diagnostic method by nasopharyngeal biopsies and fine needle aspiration of neck lumps have high rate of false negatives. Serological test for EBV antibody titre is also less helpful due to low sensitivity and specificity. EBV DNA in tumor cells detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been shown to be more reliable and able to detect the cancer before it develops clinically. The author and his team in University Sciences Malaysia has successfully conducted a study to evaluate the validity and reliability of detecting EBV genes in fine needle aspirates and biopsy tissue in NPC by PCR. EBV products EBNA, and EBNA, and LMP, (generally implicated in oncogenesis) together with Beta-actin gene were analyzed with adequate sample in this study for the first time in Southeast Asia. This was a step forward towards the ultimate diagnosis of NPC which otherwise may lead to an advance disease with regional metastasis adversely affecting the prognosis due to delay in diagnosis. This and a few similar studies have given new hope towards the accurate diagnosis of NPC which has inherent pitfalls in detection by conventional methods based on histopathology. This is an Editorial.

USER COMMENTS

I always find a new and informative study, this is good for those who are working far away from teaching hospitals Dr Murad Khamisani ENT Specialist CIVIL Hospital Khairpur-66020, Sindh, Pakistan Ph: 92-300-9319611
Posted by: drmurad on Sep 2005

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