Background and purpose: The association of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was firmly established as early as 1973. A clear understanding of its etiology is still lacking, but nasopharyngeal carcinoma is widely suspected to be the result of both a genetic susceptibility and exposure to environmental factors or Epstein-Barr virus infection. NPC is more prevalent in young age and Iran is a country with young population, therefore we set forth to study the level of infection with EBV. Materials and methods: A 25-person group of NPC patient as the case group and a 25-person group of patients considered to be at risk of developing NPC as the control group were studied. DNA extraction of the tissue samples kept at hospital and laboratory archives was done as template in PCR. Results: The mean ages of patients in case and control groups were 44.64 and 32.28 years, respectively. In case group 23 patients were positive for EBV-DNA while in control group 12 patients were positive for EBV-DNA. Conclusion: Our data demonstrates that EBV is present at the site of tumor development in low-risk population. This survey supports the concept of NPC pathogenesis as a multifactorial process.

Keywords: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma Epstein Barr virus, Polymerase chain reaction.

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