1. Human T-Lymphotropic Virus Infection in Hepatitis C Virus–Antibody Positive Patients in Spain
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Ana Treviño, Antonio Aguilera, Manuel Rodríguez-Iglesias, Araceli Hernández, Rafael Benito, Lourdes Roc, José Manuel Ramos, Raul Ortiz de Lejarazu, Carmen Rodríguez, Jorge del Romero, Enrique Calderón, Juan García-Costa, Eva Poveda, Silvia Requena, Vicente Soriano, Carmen de Mendoza, and null on behalf of the Spanish HTLV Netwo
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0301 basic medicine ,viruses ,Hepatitis C virus ,Immunology ,Population ,medicine.disease_cause ,Asymptomatic ,Virus ,Serology ,03 medical and health sciences ,immune system diseases ,hemic and lymphatic diseases ,Virology ,Tropical spastic paraparesis ,medicine ,education ,education.field_of_study ,Transmission (medicine) ,business.industry ,virus diseases ,medicine.disease ,030112 virology ,Infectious Diseases ,Population study ,medicine.symptom ,business - Abstract
Since hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) share transmission routes, dual infection could be frequent. In Spain, HTLV underdiagnosis is highlighted by the high proportion of patients presenting either with tropical spastic paraparesis or adult T cell leukemia at first diagnosis. We examined whether the renewed efforts for expanding HCV testing may provide a sentinel population that might selectively be targeted to unveil asymptomatic HTLV carriers. The presence of anti-HTLV antibodies was examined in 3,838 consecutive individuals with reactive HCV serology attended during the last 3 years at 13 hospitals distributed across the Spanish geography. Overall 71% were male, and the median age was 41 years old. Foreigners represented 9% of the study population. A total of 50 individuals (1.3%) were seroreactive for HTLV, being 30 confirmed as HTLV-2 and 2 as HTLV-1 (0.12%). The remaining 18 had indeterminate Western blot patterns. Most individuals with HTLV-2 and HTLV indetermi...
- Published
- 2017
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