Human T-cell lymphotropic virus types I and II infections in a cohort of patients with neurological disorders in Belém, Pará, Brazil


Autoria(s): Macêdo,Olinda; Ribeiro-Lima,Telma V.; Linhares,Adriana de O.; Moura,Antônio de; Gomes,Maria de Lourdes C.; Linhares,Alexandre C.
Data(s)

01/02/2004

Resumo

Serum- and/or- cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples obtained from 190 patients suffering from chronic, progressive neurological disease were screened for the presence of human T-cell lymphotropic viruses type I (HTLV-I) and type II (HTLV-II) antibodies over a six-year period (1996 to 2001) in Belém, Pará, Brazil. Patients were of both sexes (male subjects, 52%) with ages ranging from 2 to 79 years (mean, 35.9). Overall, 15 (7.9%) subjects - of whom 12 (80%) were female adults - reacted HTLV-I/II-seropositive when screened by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Serum samples from 14 of these patients were also analyzed using a recombinant Western blot (WB) assay that yielded HTLV-I-, HTLV-II-, and HTLV-I/II- reactivities for 10 (71.4%), 3 (21.4%) and 1 (7.2%) of them, respectively. The yearly rates of HTLV-I/II antibodies ranged from 2.6% (2001) to 21.7% (2000), with progressively increasing seropositivities from 1998 to 2000. Altogether, walking difficulty (n = 5 subjects), spasticity (n = 4) and leg weakness (n = 3) accounted for 80% of symptoms recorded among the 15 patients whose sera had antibodies to HTLV-I/II as detected by ELISA. These findings provide evidence that both HTLV-I and HTLV-II play a role in the development of chronic myelopathy in Belém, Pará, Northern Brazil.

Formato

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Identificador

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0036-46652004000100003

Idioma(s)

en

Publicador

Instituto de Medicina Tropical

Fonte

Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo v.46 n.1 2004

Palavras-Chave #HTLV-I #HTLV-II #Neurological disease
Tipo

journal article