We retrospectively studied 343 consecutive patients treated between 1979 and 1992. Ninety patients whose stool was not examined were excluded. Fifty-three patients with strongyloidiasis were compared with 200 controls with regard to outcomes and the following characteristics: age, sex, underlying disease, use of corticosteroids, abdominal pain, diarrhea, fever, pulmonary symptoms, and eosinophilia. Patients with strongyloidiasis more commonly had eosinophilia (P = .01) and fever (P = .03). There was a single but fatal case of the disseminated disease syndrome (1.9% of patients with strongyloidiasis). In multiple logistic regression analysis, the factors predictive for strongyloidiasis were schistosomiasis (odds ratio [OR], 6.58), ascariasis (OR, 2.78), and the use of steroids (OR, 2.29). Strongyloidiasis was highly prevalent among patients with hematologic malignancies in Brazil. Occurrence of the disseminated disease syndrome seems to be unusual.
A total of 21 patients with hematologic malignancies were given thiabendazole for treatment of strongyloidiasis. Fifteen patients were cured. Since there were no relapses, it is unlikely that maintenance therapy has a role in the management of strongyloidiasis in this population of patients.
The presence of genetic mutations in HIV-1-positive untreated individuals and its contribution to treatment failure, either in an individual or on a population basis, remains an important concern. The goal was to analyze and compare HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease (PR) genes of untreated individuals with chronic and recent infections. Fifty-one chronic infected individuals for whom initiation of antiretroviral treatment had been recommended and 20 individuals with recent documented HIV-1 seroconversion had their plasma viral RNA extracted and the PR and RT genes sequenced in order to determine subtype, presence of genetic polymorphisms and mutations associated with resistance to antiretroviral drugs. All 20 recent seroconvertors were infected with subtype B viruses. Of the 51 chronically infected patients, 40 (78.4%), 7 (13.7%), and 2 (3.9%) were infected with subtypes B, F, and C, respectively. Two (3.9%) hybrid forms were also observed in two individuals with chronic infection: D/B and D/F. Despite seroconversion stage, type and quantity of mutations were similar to both groups (P = 0.961). This group also presented the only (1.4%) drug-resistance mutation (M184V) among all samples investigated. In summary, the present study shows a high occurrence of equivalent polymorphisms unrelated to drug resistance in samples collected from untreated HIV-1- infected individuals in different seroconversion status, and suggests low primary resistance mutations. Results also indicate that non-B subtypes circulating in Rio de Janeiro have specific Brazilian non-synonymous mutations.
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