| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
GESSAIN Antoine Pasteur Institute, France, ウイルス疫学部, 研究員
FRANCHINI Ge 米国国立衛生研究所, 腫瘍細胞生物学研究部, 研究員
SAKATA Kenmei Kumamoto University Hospital, 医学部・附属病院, 助手 (60225795)
YAMAGUCHI Kazunari Kumamoto University Hospital, 医学部・附属病院, 講師 (20128325)
FRANCHINI Genoveffa National Cancer Institute, USA
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| Research Abstract |
Human T lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) has been etiologically associated with a hematological malignancy termed adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) and a chronic neurological disease named HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). HTLV-I infection is endemic in some areas of the world, for example, the southern part of Japan, the Caribbean basin. Many of the ATL patients studied in the USA, the UK, France, and the Netherlands originated from the Caribbean area.
Antibodies against HTLV-I have been detected in 1.2 million people and more than 700 cases of ATL are diagnosed each year in Japan alone. However, in some areas of Central and South America many HAM/TSP patients are observed but not so many ATL patients. Clinical course, ATL subtype, frequencies of hypercalcemia and opportunistic infections, cell morphology, phenotypic profile, and response to treatment seem to be the same for ATL in Japanese, Caribbean, and African patients. One of the differences is in age at onset : the average age is lower for the Caribbean and African than for Japanese ATL patients. And there is a relative paucity of the chronic subtype in Caribbean countries as compared to Japanese cases, while the lymphoma type is more common in Jamaica than in Japan.
The reasons for the differences recorded are not clear. Environmental and genetic influences may be significant in providing different cofactors affecting the manifestations of the disease.
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