CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SERIAL EXAMINATION OF ANTI HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS ( HIV ) ANTIBODY AND HIV ANTIGEN IN HEMOPHILIACS WITH HIV INFECTION

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SERIAL EXAMINATION OF ANTI HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS (HIV) ANTIBODY AND HIV ANTIGEN IN HEMOPHILIACS WITH HIV INFECTION Sayuri Odajima, Juzo Matsuda, Toshikazu Hamauzu, Noriko Saito, Tadatoshi Kinoshita and Takeshi Abe Department of Medicine, Teikyo University School of Medicine We tested for the anti HIV antibody and the HIV antigen in the sera of 81 hemophiliacs (A 68 cases, B 13 cases), who have been under treatment in our department. The anti HIV antibody was found to be present in 44.3% of the cases, including 7 cases who later changed to positive, and 6 with HIV antigen. In the sera of those 7 seroconverted cases, although the HN antigen was negative, the p24 antibody was detected by the Western blotting method and the gp41 antibody was detected by the Confirmatory EIA (ENVACORE, Abbott Lab., USA) earlier than by the immunofluorescence method and conventional ELISA. Moreover, in 4 cases who later developed AIDS, HIV turned out positive concurrently with or shortly after the enfeeblement and/or disappearance of the p24 antibody which was associated with a progressive decrease in the CD4/8 ratio of lymphocytes and the development of recurrent oppotunistic infections. Based on these results, it is suggested that the periodical examination for anti p24 and gp41 antibodies and HIV itself might be clinically useful for predicting the development of AIDS and thustreating them at an early stage.