Hematological indices in a cohort of HTLV-I/II and HIV-1 infected intravenous drug users in New York City

The prevalence and clinical consequences of human T-cell lymphotropic viruses types I and II (HTLV-I/II) infection in human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infected persons are areas of continuing interest. This article reports the preliminary findings of the hematological indices in 454 patients infected with HIV-1 and HTLV-I/HTLV-II. Based on serology, 46.2% of the patients had evidence of HIV-1 infection only, 4.6% had evidence of HTLV-I/II only, 14.3% had evidence of both HIV-1 and HTLV-I/II, and 34.8% had evidence of neither HIV-1 or HTLV-I/II. The patient group with both HTLV-I/II and HIV-1 infection had lower total white blood cell, platelet, and serum hematocrits than patients with either HIV-1 or HTLV-I/II infection. While these differences were insignificant, they do not suggest any HTLV-I/II-induced protective effect against HIV-1 related hematological consequences.