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Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1), the first human retrovirus discovered, has a tropism for T lymphocytes and has been established as the causative agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), an aggressive CD4 T-cell malignancy (1, 2, 3, 4). HTLV-2 was subsequently isolated and found to share approximately 60% nucleotide sequence homology with HTLV-1 (5). In the mid-1980s, HTLV-1 began to be associated through epidemiologic studies as a contributing factor in chronic neurodegenerative disorders. These clinical syndromes were first reported in Japan and Martinique (French West Indies), both regions that were endemic for HTLV-1 infection (6,7). Through important international cooperative studies, both syndromes were revealed to be identical in clinical presentation and are now known collectively as HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). HTLV-2 has been sporadically associated with lymphoproliferative diseases and recently has been implicated in isolated case reports of neurological disease (8,9). |
