Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is one type of leukemia that arises from lymphocytes' progenitor cell in the Bone marrow, it affects individuals over the age of 50 years in both genders. In Iraq, leukemia affected 1532 (847 males and 683 females) according to the latest announced statistics of the Iraqi Cancer Registry Center in 2012. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia may occur due to several genetic causes, such as chromosomal aberrations and gene mutations, or exposure to carcinogens and mutagens (radiation, chemicals, and oncogenic viruses). The most famous virus is the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which is a gamma herpesvirus that infects more than 90% of individuals. Its infection is mostly a latent infection, and EBV remains latent in memory B-cells. The aim of this study was to determine the EBV-DNA load in the peripheral blood of CLL patients by using the real-time PCR technique. Epstein-Barr virus genome had shown that 11 (18%) of 61 patients have the virus genome, and the number of copies ranged from 1 × 10⁸ to 2 × 10¹¹.
