Burkitt lymphoma
Linfoma de Burkitt
- Date
- 1958 · confidence high
- Place
- Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda
- Credited to
- Denis Burkitt (with the support of Hugh Trowell and Ugandan surgeons)
- People
- 👤 Denis Parsons Burkitt1911–1993
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Description of a jaw tumour in African children and mapping of its distribution, linked to climate and malaria. In its cells, the Epstein-Barr virus was found in 1964, the first virus known to cause human cancer.
Burkitt travelled 16,000 km in 1961 to map the 'lymphoma belt'. Epstein, Achong and Barr worked in London with samples sent from Kampala.
What it led to
- the discovery of the Epstein-Barr virus (1964)
- geographical epidemiology of cancer
- curative chemotherapy for childhood tumours