Abstract

Seyed Hamidreza Monavari, Hossein Keyvani, Hamidreza mollaie, Mehdi fazlalipour, Farzin sadeghi, Mostafa Salehi-Vaziri, Roghaeh mollaie and Farah Bokharaei-Salim

Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-1 (HTLV-1) is a deltaretrovirus linked causally to adult T-cell
leukemia or lymphoma (ATL), and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis
(HAM/TSP). The aim of this study was to detect HTLV-1 infection in patients with malignant
hematological diseases and also determining the prevalence of HTLV-1 in these patient groups. Sixty
patients with malignant hematological diseases were included in the study and tested by enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for anti-HTLV-1, and Real time-PCR for the sequences from HTLV-1 tax
gene. The mean age of patients was 33.9 ± 18.3 years. 18 of the subjects were found HTLV-1
seropositive using ELISA and the viral prevalence by Real time-PCR was 12%. HTLV-1 was found in
25% of patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), 58.3% of patients with chronic myelogenous
leukemia (CML), 16.7% of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and no detected in patients
with lymphoma. The present study revealed that HTLV-1 is prevalent in patients with malignant
hematological diseases and in our study. The major HTLV-1 associated syndromes were chronic
myelogenous leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.