RESEARCH FOR THE PATHOMECHANISM, EPIDEMILOGY AND TREATMENTS FOR HAM AND HTLV-I RELATED DISORDERS.

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This research provided several important results during these two years of investigation. In Kasari-town, which is a remote island in Kagoshima, we examined 384 inhabitants. Among them, 36(9.4%) had anti-HTLV-I antibodies in the serum. A longitudinal study of carriers will be done in the coming ten years. Lymphocyte separation was performed from 800 patients and family members who were admitted at Kagoshima University hospital. All of these samples were stored in liquid nitrogen.The clinical features and the laboratory data of 208 patients with HAM were entered in the computer for analysis. The results provided several important information regarding HAM. For instance, HAM may not sometimes have anti-HTLV-I antibodies in cerebrospinal fluid. The associated diseases in patients with HAM were also analyzed and their prevalence were calculated. The pathomechanisms of HTLV-I associated arthropathy, alveolitis, Shjogren syndrome, myositis. IgA nephropathy and pseudohypoparathyroidism were investigated and several important findings could be obtained. Five autopsied cases HAM were studied for neuropathological analysis. The specific importance of CD8lymphocytes was observed. Cytotoxic CD8 cells for the pX region were also found in the blood of patients. More than ten different therapeutic regimens were tried in HAM with very encouraging results.