Figure 5. Association between lactate dehydrogenase and Epstein-Barr virus levels and overall risk of death among children with Burkitt lymphoma, Kisumu, Kenya.
In multivariate models adjusted for age, gender, nutritional status and tumor stage, (A) elevated serum LDH (>400 mU/ml) was associated with increased risk of death or relapse (aHR=1.84 [0.91 to 3.69]). In contrast, (B) EBV load (copies/μg DNA) was not associated with tumor stage (p=0.583) and was not found to be associated with long-term survival. Even when categorizing viral loads, (C) children with EBV viral loads of >2000 and between >200 - 2000 copies/μg DNA were 0.85 [0.34 to 2.16] and 0.95 [0.33 to 2.73] times less likely to die or suffer a relapse, respectively, as compared to children with EBV viral loads between 0 – 200 copies/μg DNA.