Bacterial Infection and MALT Lymphoma

Fifty years ago, the idea that infectious agents caused lymphoma would have seemed heretical. Although viruses were known to cause tumors in animals, they were not considered a cause of disease in humans — that simply was not what infections did. Rather, tumors were considered to be the consequence of environmental exposures and of inherited genetic abnormalities. This view began to change 35 years ago, when a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma — Burkitt's lymphoma — was found to be closely associated with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV). The relationship between EBV infection and lymphoma, however, was considered to be an anomaly, . . .