Patients with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection have more severe hepatitis-related disease than do patients with HCV infection alone. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with protease inhibitor appears to restore pathogen-specific immune responses, especially in patients with persistent undetectable HIV viral load. To evaluate the potent impact of immune restoration induced by HAART on the course of HCV-related disease, HCV viremia and levels of transaminases were compared between two groups of patients: 10 HIV/HCV-coinfected patients with persistently undetectable HIV viremia (group A) and 12 HIV/HCV-coinfected patients with persistent detectable HIV viremia. No difference was detected in HCV viral load in either group. An increase in transaminases was found only in patients with persistent undetectable HIV viral load, which was correlated with the increase in CD8+ T cells. This may suggest that the restoration of CD8+ T cell cytotoxicity could lead to an enhancement of hepatitis C-related disease in HCV/HIV-coinfected patients receiving HAART.

No abstract

No abstract

From the longitudinal study of a cohort of HIV-positive patients, we report the case of a patient who initially harbored the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) type 1 and subsequently developed an EBV-2-associated non-Hodgkin's B lymphoma a few years after an EBV-2 reactivation, or an exogenous reactivation, in the blood. At the time of diagnosis of hepatic lymphoma, the blood and the throat harbored high levels of the EBV-1 dominant strain. Sequence analysis of EBNA-2 gene revealed that: (1) type 2 EBV detected during reactivation and then in hepatic tumor was very likely to be the same strain and was mostly identical to the EBV prototype AG876; (2) type 1 virus conserved the same mutations during all the follow-up. These results suggest that EBV-2 might be associated with lymphomatogenesis and that a transient reactivation could lead to the development of an EBV-associated disease.

Hemolysis is a rare complication of cytomegalovirus infection in the immunocompetent adult, and the mechanisms responsible for it remain obscure. Guidelines for treatment have yet to be established, and the effectiveness of antiviral therapy has not been proven. In this report, an unusual case of primary cytomegalovirus infection manifested by severe hemolysis in an immunocompetent adult is presented. Treatment with ganciclovir (5 mg/kg b.i.d.) for 10 days and prednisolone (2 mg/kg/day) for more than 3 months suggests that both virological and immunological mechanisms are probably responsible for the hemolysis.