Kalkan et al (2005) and Thorne et al (2005) detected EBV genome in epithelial and also in normal cells. In these studies, low amounts of template DNA was probably used as the tissues were microdissected and DNA amplificability was controlled by HER2 detection. In our BC samples, the loads of EBV genetic information (BamHIC per 100 ng DNA) ranged far below the range of HER2 values (HER2/GAPDH copy number). The high heterogeneity in EBV detection that has been shown within individual tumours also needs to be considered (Fina et al, 2001). The gene discussed is ERBB2; the disease is breast cancer.