[Seroprevalence of HTLV-I in various ocular diseases in central Japan].
Recently human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) has been shown to be responsible for a kind of uveitis in southwestern Japan, where HTLV-I infection is highly endemic. To investigate further the association of HTLV-I with various ocular diseases, we studied HTLV-I seroprevalence in 1,350 patients in central Japan, where HTLV-I infection is not endemic. Of 1,350 patients with various ocular diseases, 40 (2.96%) were seropositive for the retrovirus. There was no statistically significant difference in HTLV-I seroprevalence among various ocular diseases. Four of 9 (44.4%) seropositive cases from southwestern Japan developed HTLV-I associated uveitis (HAU), whereas only 2 of 26 (7.7%) seropositive cases from central Japan developed HAU. The difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). This suggests that the incidence of HAU could be influenced by environmental or hereditary factors. On the other hand, 3 of 7 (42.9%) patients with episcleritis showed HTLV-I infection.
Goto
K
K
Division of Ophthalmology, Odawara Municipal Hospital, Japan.
Kurita
M
M
Watanabe
N
N
Ogi
A
A
Iijima
Y
Y
Hanajiri
M
M
Saeki
K
K
Ohno
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005128:Eye Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies
D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies