It has been suggested that the rate of CD4 cell decline accelerates in parallel with decreasing numbers of cells; however, the statistical literature suggests the opposite. CD4 cells were counted about every 6 months in a cohort of 1264 human immunodeficiency virus-infected subjects (the Italian Seroconversion Study cohort). Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate the time for CD4 cells to d...

OBJECTIVE Aims of this study were to determine the IgG and IgM seropositivity to parvovirus B19 during the three trimesters of pregnancy. METHODS Initially, a total of 1,047 pregnant women were included in a prospective study. Blood samples were obtained from 343, 406 and 298 cases in the first, second and third trimesters, respectively. To study the incidence of seroconversion, a second samp...

OBJECTIVES To study differences in pre-AIDS mortality between European cohorts of injecting drug users (IDU) and to evaluate whether pre-AIDS mortality increased with time since HIV seroconversion and decreasing CD4 count. METHODS The study population consisted of 664 IDU with documented intervals of HIV seroconversion from eight cohort studies. Differences in pre-AIDS mortality were studied ...

BACKGROUND Despite improvement in hepatitis B infection prevention through national vaccination programs, implementation of compulsory and thorough blood donor screening, and reduction of transfusion numbers due to erythropoietin administration,hepatitis B remains a major concern in hemodialysis (HD) centers [1]. Compared to aresponse rate of over 90% in the normal population, only 50 to 60% of...

BACKGROUND Interferon alpha (IFNα) therapy has been widely used in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) for decades. Nucleos(t)ide analogues are also increasingly used to treat CHB recently. More and more studies are being carried out concerning the clearance or seroconversion of HBsAg, which is recognized as an ideal goal of CHB therapy. This study conducted a meta-analysis to estimate t...

PURPOSE Assessing the immunogenicity of a single dose of hepatitis A virus (HAV) vaccines is important because some people receive only a single dose. However, previous studies have shown variable results and have not examined the effects of demographic characteristics other than gender. This study was performed to examine the immunogenicity of a single dose of HAV vaccine according to the vacc...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Lamivudine induces favourable virological and biochemical responses but post-treatment relapses are frequent, even in patients with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) loss or seroconversion. The aim of this study was to determine whether extended lamivudine therapy for up to 12 months after HBeAg loss/seroconversion could decrease the risk of post-treatment virological relapse. I...

Nucleos(t)ide analogues rarely result in a durable off-treatment response in chronic hepatitis B infection, whereas pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN) induces a long-lasting response only in a subset of patients. We assessed the effect of sequential combination therapy with Peg-IFN-α2a and entecavir in hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive patients with prior long-term entecavir therapy and invest...

In 1993, Heimer, Kaplan, and associates (1) showed a reduction in the proportion of human immunodeficiency virus (HTV)-infected syringes among those returned to the New Haven, Connecticut, needle exchange in the months following the opening of the program. This reduction suggested a decrease in the circulation time of used needles among injectors who use the exchange, and this decrease can in t...

We have shown previously that human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) seroconversion for antibodies to the latency-associated nuclear antigen encoded by ORF73 and/or the lytic capsid antigen (vp19) encoded by ORF65 is associated with orogenital contact and is strongly linked to the development of Kaposi's sarcoma among HIV-infected individuals in the Amsterdam Cohort Studies. Here, we investigate the relati...