Is it necessary to test patients with immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) for seropositivity to HTLV-1?
✍ Scribed by Calleja, Elizabeth; Klein, Renate; Bussel, James
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 24 KB
- Volume
- 61
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0361-8609
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
HTLV-111 (HIV-1) has been shown to be associated with thrombocytopenia of a type resembling immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). HTLV-1 is a retrovirus similar to HIV-l (HTLV-III) in a number of features, such as CD4 tropism. It is responsible for several clinical entities, including adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma. The relationship, if any, of HTLV-1 and thrombocytopenia has not been systematically studied. To determine how frequently ITP patients are commonly infected with HTLV-1, the following study was performed. Frozen serum samples from 123 randomly selected patients with ITP were thawed and tested for antibodies to HTLV-1 by enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay. Positives were confirmed by Western blot. Three patients were initially found to be positive for HTLV-1. One was a female of Caribbean ancestry, one was a male HIV-1+ patient, and one was an adolescent female with no known risk factors for HIV-1. The two females later tested negative for HTLV-1. As a screening program for HTLV-1 antibodies was not introduced into blood banks until November 1988, there may have been passive transfer of the virus from intravenous immunoglobulin that these patients had received. This study of a large number of ITP patients shows that it is extremely unlikely that they are infected with HTLV-1, and, therefore, it is unnecessary to screen ITP patients for seropositivity to HTLV-1. Am.