title: The seroprevalence of HTLV-I in patients with ocular diseases, pregnant women and healthy volunteers in the Kanto district, central Japan.
abstract: HTLV-I has been shown to be related to the development of inflammatory diseases in various organs such as the eyes, lungs and joints. In south-west Japan where HTLV-I is highly endemic, the term 'HTLV-I associated complex' has been approved. To investigate the seroprevalence of HTLV-I in the Kanto district in central Japan, we have estimated the frequency of seropositivity to HTLV-I in 2,110 patients with various ocular diseases and 2,683 pregnant women, in addition to 5,336 healthy volunteers. Of the healthy volunteers, only 42 (0.79%) were seropositive, and the HTLV-I seroprevalence in pregnant women was also only 16/2,683 (0.60%) which was almost equal to that in female healthy volunteers aged 15-44 years (0.59%). In patients with various ocular diseases, however, there was significantly higher seroprevalence of HTLV-I (2.32%) compared with healthy volunteers in each sex (male: p = 0.0029; female: p = 0.000023). These results suggest that the seroprevalence of HTLV-I in the Kanto district is much lower than in south-west Japan. On the other hand, HTLV-I infection was shown to be correlated to ocular diseases also in the Kanto district. In particular, we found a higher seroprevalence of HTLV-I in patients with inflammatory ocular disease, such as endogenous uveitis, episcleritis, retinitis pigmentosa and degenerative choroiditis. This possibly suggests a causative role of HTLV-I in the development of these inflammatory ocular diseases also where HTLV-I is not endemic.
authors.affiliation: Department of Opthalmology, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Goto
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kurita
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Masuhara
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Iijima
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saeki
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohno
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000372:Agglutination Tests; D001782:Blood Donors; D005128:Eye Diseases / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies / Q000097:blood*; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies
chemical_list: D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies