High seroprevalence of anti–HTLV-I antibody in rheumatoid arthritis

✍ Scribed by Katsumi Eguchi; Tomoki Origuchi; Hiroyuki Takashima; Kokichi Iwata; Shigeru Katamine; Shigenobu Nagataki

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 364 KB
• Volume: 39
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780390314

✦ Synopsis

KATAMINE, and SHIGENOBU NAGATAKI

Objective. To investigate the association between human T lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Nagasaki, an area highly endemic for HTLV-I infection.

Methods. Sera from 113 female patients with RA and 19,796 female blood donors were screened for anti-HTLV-I antibodies with a gelatin particle agglutination kit and confirmed using an immunoblotting kits.

Results. The age-adjusted summary odds ratio of HTLV-I infection among RA patients, as compared with blood donors, was 2.8 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.84.6). The etiologic fraction, i.e., the proportion of RA in the study population that is attributable to HTLV-I infection, was estimated to be 13.2% (95% CI 5.1-21.2). There was no significant difference in the clinical and laboratory findings between HTLV-Iinfected and HTLV-I-uninfected RA patients.

Conclusion. These epidemiologic findings support the idea that HTLV-I infection is a risk factor for RA, and suggest that -13% of the cases of RA in females living in Nagasaki are associated with HTLV-I infection.

Circumstantial evidence suggests the involvement of human T lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) in the triggering and perpetuation of chronic inflammatory joint diseases. Nishioka et al (1,2) were the first to propose an association between HTLV-I and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), on the grounds that chronic Supported in part by a grant-in-aid (05670426) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sport, and Culture, Japan.