Epstein-Barr virus-associated gastric carcinoma in Japanese Brazilians and non-Japanese Brazilians in São Paulo.

The proportion of Epstein-Barr virus-associated gastric carcinoma (EBV-GC) was examined in 149 Japanese-Brazilian and 151 non-Japanese-Brazilian gastric-carcinoma cases using in situ hybridization (ISH) assay to detect EBV-encoded small RNA (EBER), and the results were compared with our referent Japanese data. We found that 4.7% of cases in Japanese Brazilians were EBER-positive. This frequency was slightly lower than that of the referent Japanese, among whom 6.2% of 2038 gastric-carcinoma cases were EBER-positive. On the other hand, the non-Japanese-Brazilian series showed a significantly higher proportion of EBV-GC (11.2%) than the referent group did (P = 0.01). Although EBV-GC was predominant in males among non-Japanese Brazilians (M / F = 3.6, P = 0.047), as was the case in Japanese (M / F = 2.7), Japanese Brazilians did not show such a male predominance. The sex-ratio difference between the Japanese Brazilians and Japanese was statistically significant (P = 0.005). In conclusion, the present study in Japanese Brazilians and Japanese yielded no evidence suggesting any change in the frequency of EBV-GC caused by migration, except the absence of male predominance, which was observed both in Japanese and non-Japanese Brazilians.