Association Between Human Herpesvirus-6 and Primary Brain Tumors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Aim: The present study aimed to find out the prevalence and any possible association between human herpesvirus (HHV-6) and primary brain tumors. Materials & methods: The systematic literature search was performed by finding related articles from major databases. Analysis was performed by comprehensive meta-analysis software. Results: A total of 13 (25 datasets) articles were included in the study, seven (15 datasets) of which were case/control and the rest (10 datasets) were cross-sectional studies. The pooled prevalence of HHV-6 among primary brain cancer patients was 29% (95% CI: 24–33%; I² = 97.89%). An association was found between HHV-6 and primary brain cancer (summary odds ratio: 3.77% [95% CI: 2.59–5.49%; I² = 19.0%]). Conclusion: Our analysis demonstrated that HHV-6 is associated with primary brain cancer. Reactivation of the virus could be triggered by the tumor, therefore, we cannot be certain that the virus appeared before the cancer development.

Keywords:

• brain cancer
• brain tumor
• HHV-6
• human herpesvirus-6
• meta-analysis

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at:www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2217/fvl-2021-0096

Author contributions

S Ghorbani, SJ Kiani: conceived and designed the study. A Khatami, MV Rad, S Bahadory, R Tabatabaei, M Fatemipour, M Hoseini, A Letafati, S Shabani, V Tambrchi, P Moradi, and A Tavakoli: searched the literature and extracted the data. H Saadati and R Farzi: analyzed the data. S Ghorbani, F Bokharaei-Salim, SH Monavari and SJ Kiani: wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Availability of data & materials

All data used and analyzed are available from the corresponding author. The review was not registered and a review protocol was not prepared.