Abstract
Seventy-one Japanese adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) patients and 411 Japanese asymptomatic patients from HTLV-I endemic regions of southern Japan were found to be seropositive by radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA). Of these 482 positive controls, 62% of ATL patients and 67% of the asymptomatic seropositive patients were found to harbor antibodies to p40 x . Additionally, 333 preselected Japanese blood donors who were identified as seropositive by particle agglutination (PA) assay were further tested for antibodies to HTLV-I/II gene encoded envelope (env) or group specific antigens (gag) by means of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and RIPA. Concordance between ELISA and RIPA was noted in 318 samples (92.5%). Discordance between ELISA and RIPA was observed in 15 sera (7.5%)—2 were seropositive by ELISA and seronegative by RIPA and 13 were seronegative by ELISA and seropositive by RIPA. Seven of these 13 samples (53.8%) contained antibodies to p40 x by RIPA and may represent ELISA false negatives on the basis of both clinical and laboratory data. Current HTLV-I/II ELISA kits may yield false negative results. Additional research into the development of rapid detection cost-efficient assays that test for the full compliment of viral antigens is needed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.