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ABSTRACT. Incontinentia pigmenti is a multisystem genodermatosis characterized by cutaneous, neurologic, ophthalmologic, and dental abnormalities. The skin lesions associated with the disease progress through 4 stages, the first being erythematous vesicles linearly distributed along the lines of Blaschko. We report a case of an infant who had incontinentia pigmenti and presented with 2 crops of vesicles and was initially thought to have herpes simplex virus. Pediatrics 2004;114:e270 -e272. URL: http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/114/ 2/e270; incontinentia pigmenti, herpes simplex virus, Block-Sulzberger syndrome.ABBREVIATIONS. IP, incontinentia pigmenti; HSV, herpes simplex virus; CNS, central nervous system; WBCs, white blood cells.

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Several recent large studies demonstrated that smoking was associated with a greater incidence of cervical, vulvar, penile, anal, oral, and head and neck cancer in a dose-dependent fashion, while other studies did not show any correlation between smoking and cervical dysplasia after multivariate adjustment. Recent studies have also indicated that smoking may be more closely related to high-grade lesions of the cervix and vulva. These data provide evidence of an association between HPV, smoking, and cancer. Progression of dysplasia likewise seems to be associated with smoking. Several groups have attempted to discern whether the connection between smoking and cervical cancer is from local immunosuppression and/or from direct carcinogenic effects.

During acute human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, both virus load (HIV RNA) and infectivity are high (10(3)-10(7) RNA copies/mL or TCID(50)/mL) until antibody is produced, which may reduce the HIV infectivity. In HIV carriers, the HIV RNA load is elevated (10(3)-10(5) copies/mL), but infectivity is low (10(0)-10(2) TCID(50)/mL). The low infectivity in carriers could be due to neutralization by antibody in serum, resulting in immune complexes (ICs). We demonstrated that ICs in plasma, prepared with protein A beads, contained HIV RNA (80%-100%) in association with immunoglobulin G (IgG). In comparison, ICs from patients with acute HIV infection and little or no antibody contained virtually no HIV RNA. Moreover, ICs prepared by ultrafiltration contained IgG and specifically and irreversibly neutralized HIV, which indicates that the ICs contained neutralizing antibody. These findings indicate that the HIV RNA in the plasma of carriers is frequently composed of antibody-neutralized HIV as ICs.