Human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV) types 1 and 2 belong to the Oncorna group of retroviridae, a large family of viruses, grouped initially by pathogenic features, but later revised on the basis of genome structure and nucleotide sequence. HTLV-I was the first discovered human retrovirus to be associated with a malignancy in 1980. The malignancy, first described by Uchiyama and co-worker...

HTLV type 1 and 2 are both involved in actively spreading epidemics, affecting over 15 million people worldwide. HTLV-1 has been described as the more clinically significant one, being associated with diseases such as adult T-cell leukemia and tropical spastic paraparesis. We report here a case of tropical spastic paraparesis in an HIV-positive patient who did not report any history of travel o...

Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a persistent CD4+ T-lymphotropic retrovirus. Most HTLV-1-infected individuals remain asymptomatic, but a proportion develop adult T cell leukemia or inflammatory disease. It is not fully understood how HTLV-1 persists despite a strong immune response or what determines the risk of HTLV-1-associated diseases. Until recently, it has been difficult to ...

111 families, and Paskind and Stone (1933) also summarized the literature with accounts of another 36 reports from 40 families. Since then about 50 further reports have appeared, covering some 60 families, bringing the total so far to 176 reports of 215 families. Of these the majority have originated in Germany or elsewhere in Europe, but with a substantial number from the Americas. In Britain,...

Human T-lymphotrophic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a retrovirus that is thought to infect approximately 10-20 million people worldwide. The majority of infected individuals remain asymptomatic carriers lifelong. HTLV-1 is thought to cause both local and systemic inflammatory diseases. The most common inflammatory condition associated with HTLV-1 is HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/Tropical spastic para...

The hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs) are inherited neurologic disorders in which the primary symptom is insidiously progressive difficulty walking due to lower extremity weakness and spasticity. There have been great strides in our knowledge of this group of disabling disorders; 20 HSP loci and 9 HSP genes have been discovered. Insights into the molecular causes of HSPs are beginning to em...

In order to evaluate the prevalence of HTLV-I infection and its association with tropical spastic paraparesis (TSP) in Bahia, a Northeastern State of Brazil, CSF and sera from TSP patients and CSF and/or sera from some selected groups of individuals were studied. The results seem to indicate a higher prevalence of HTLV-I infection in women than men with TSP and among individuals of HIV risk gro...

Here a young patient (< 21 years of age) with a history of infective dermatitis is described. The patient was diagnosed with myelopathy associated with HTLV-1/tropical spastic paraparesis and treated with interferon beta-1a. The disease was clinically established as HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP), and laboratory tests confirmed the presence of antibodies to ...

MRI of thoracic cord in tropical spastic paraparesis Tropical spastic paraparesis (TSP) is a disease occurring in Afro-Caribbeans following HTLV-1 retro-virus infection. There is some evidence that the geographical and ethnic distribution ofHTLV-1 illness is even wider' and HTLV-1 associated myelopathy (HAM) in Japan is probably the same disorder. Abnormalities are found on MRI of the brain in ...