Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) load and interleukin‐10 in EBV‐positive and EBV‐negative post‐transplant lymphoproliferative disorders

Summary. Post‐transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLDs) are heterogeneous severe complications occurring in 1–10% of transplanted patients. In most cases, PTLDs are associated with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection but, recently, some clinical studies have reported an increasing number of EBV‐negative PTLDs. Several studies have emphasized the critical role of the early identification of patients at risk for PTLD, in prompting the adoption of either pre‐emptive strategies or timely treatment. To this purpose, monitoring of EBV DNA load in peripheral blood mononuclear cells is considered to be a useful test. Moreover, recently, the role of interleukin (IL)‐10 in EBV‐related diseases has been remarked, and high levels of IL‐10 have been detected in PTLD patients. In this study, both EBV load and IL‐10 were monitored in 38 PTLD patients at diagnosis and during follow‐up, as well as in a control group, in order to establish the diagnostic role of the two tests, their relationship with the different PTLD subsets (EBV‐positive and EBV‐negative) and their behaviour during treatment. Results of our study suggest that the usefulness of IL‐10 assay for early diagnosis of PTLD is similar to that of EBV load quantification, and its clinical diagnostic value is lower in EBV‐negative than in EBV‐positive PTLDs.