[Chronic progressive cervical myelopathy with HTLV-I infection: variant form of HAM/TSP].
We report four patients with slowly progressive cervical myelopathy. The four patients had several features in common; 1) progressive cervical myelopathy with a duration of several months to years, 2) abnormal lesions in the cervical to upper thoracic cord levels with or without gadolinium enhancement, 3) anti-HTLV-I antibodies were positive both in serum and CSF, 4) high levels of HTLV-I proviral load in PBMC. The calculated risk of HAM/TSP in two patients showed a high value, comparable to those of HAM/TSP, and higher than those of healthy HTLV-I carrier. Because the clinical and laboratory findings of these four cases show similarities to those of HAM/TSP, we propose that these four cases may be a variant form of HAM/TSP.
Umehara
Fujio
F
Department of Neurology and Geriatrics, Graduate School of Kagoshima University.
D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies / Q000097:blood / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015493:Paraparesis, Tropical Spastic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology*; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000473:pathology
D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies