[Study on serum neopterin concentration in hemophiliacs with anti-human immunodeficiency-virus type I antibody]

The present study was undertaken to discuss whether measurement of neopterin (NP) released into blood from monocytes/macrophage following activation of lymphocytes were useful tool to predict development of AIDS after HIV-1 infection. The subjects used for this study were eighty one cases of hemophilia, of whom 47 cases were HIV-1 antibody tested positive. Serum NP concentration (15.0 +/- 13.8 nmol/l) in anti-HIV-1 antibody-positive group was higher than in-negative group (5.7 +/- 3.3 nmol/l) (p less than 0.05), in which there was no case whose serum NP level amounted to more than 20 nmol/l. In anti-HIV-1 antibody-positive group, in which CD4/CD8 lymphocyte ratio was less than 0.4, serum NP level was significantly higher than in the group whose lymphocyte ratio was more than 0.5 (p less than 0.05). This result represents that there is a reverse correlation of NP concentration with the developing level of immunodeficiency. Furthermore, in eight cases who developed AIDS, serum NP levels turned to increase from several months or earlier until in all cases the levels were more than 30 nmol/l. In three cases of five who were dead, serum NP concentration had decreased to death since several months through one year. These findings reveal that measurement of serum NP concentration is correlated with clinical outcome after HIV-1 infection and it is useful as the marker for prediction of AIDS development. Also these findings represent that a parallel application of serum NP assay to CD4 lymphocyte counting, detection of anti-HIV-1 antibody, IgA, beta 2-microglobulin assays can predict the outcome of the HIV-1 infection more precisely.