Researchers have found that hepatitis B and C viruses are one of the causes of multiple myeloma

Researchers from the H120-CNIO Hematology Tumor Clinical Research Unit have discovered that hepatitis B and C viruses are one of the causes of multiple myeloma, and that eliminating the infection with antiviral drugs is a way to combat many cases of this type of cancer. Several years ago, the cure of a patient with multiple myeloma after treatment for hepatitis C surprised researchers from the group of Joaquín Martínez of the H12O-CNIO Hematological Tumor Clinical Research Unit, created in collaboration with Hospital October 12 (H12O) and the National Center for Cancer Research (CNIO). Now the opening of the CNIO group and the hospital on October 12, carried out in collaboration with Sylvie Hermouet from the University of Nantes (France), has earned a recent editorial in the journal Haematologica.

“Recognizing this association between viral hepatitis and multiple myeloma, as well as with the pathologies known to precede the onset of myeloma, the monoclonal gammopathies, has important clinical implications,” the journal notes. “Detect infection early hepatitis B or C virus infection in these individuals may lead to appropriate antiviral treatment and subsequent improved outcomes,” the publication adds.

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It is still unknown what causes multiple myeloma, and although it has long been suggested that it is associated with infectious pathogens, this connection has never been proven and the cause is not understood. Researchers Maria Linares and Alba Rodriguez-Garcia, from the Clinical Unit of Hematological Cancer H12O-CNIO and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), decided to study the treatment of patients with hepatitis. To do this, they resorted to a theory that explains the cause of multiple myeloma by chronic exposure to an infectious agent on the body.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is an excessive proliferation of blood cells that produce antibodies (also called immunoglobulins), proteins that protect the body from infections. In myeloma, the defining antibody – different in each case, depending on the infectious agent – is produced constantly and in excess. One theory suggests that this abnormality occurs due to chronic exposure to an infectious agent, which alters the biochemical signals involved in the production of specific antibodies against that agent. The cure of a patient with myeloma and hepatitis C after treatment for this infectious disease appears to support this theory.

Linares and Rodriguez-Garcia theorized that the body was no longer chronically exposed to the hepatitis virus because the antiviral drug had destroyed it, and that was why the myeloma had disappeared—the cells that made antibodies against hepatitis C had stopped multiplying excessively. To find out whether this actually happened, two studies were conducted that included 54 patients with monoclonal gammopathy (a pathology that precedes multiple myeloma) and hepatitis: 9 patients with hepatitis C in the first study and 45 patients with hepatitis B, in a work published in the journal Haematologica. Most of them discovered that the antibodies they were constantly and excessively producing were actually against the hepatitis virus. They then moved on to analyze a much larger group of multiple myeloma patients (more than 1,300) infected with hepatitis B and hepatitis C (more than 1,200). In both cohorts, they concluded that those who received antiviral treatment “were significantly more likely to survive.”

The authors, who also publish their findings in the journal Haematologica, state that “in patients infected with hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus, these viruses can cause multiple myeloma or gammopathy, and the study demonstrates the importance of antiviral treatment in these patients. The magazine’s editorial concludes: “The connection between viral hepatitis and the development of multiple myeloma and other monoclonal gammopathies has become an important area of ​​research. Chronic hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus infections contribute to the pathogenesis of these hematologic malignancies, justifying increased awareness, detection and treatment strategies.” He adds that patients with gammopathies caused by these hepatitis, which can be identified by testing the antibodies they produce in excess, “should be given antiviral therapy as soon as possible.”

(According to EFE)