Two percent or more of susceptible women acquire HSV infection during pregnancy. Acquisition of infection with seroconversion completed before labor does not appear to affect the outcome of pregnancy, but infection acquired near the time of labor is associated with neonatal herpes and perinatal morbidity.

Secondary lymphoproliferative syndromes in immunosuppressed patients have been characterized as polyclonal or monoclonal B-lineage disorders nearly always associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. The authors now report three patients with a distinctly different lymphoproliferative syndrome. Two patients with common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen (CALLA) (CD10)-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia and one patient with acute myelogenous leukemia, respectively, received high-dose chemoradiotherapy followed by marrow transplantation from either an HLA-identical sibling or HLA-mismatched parent. All three patients developed severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), requiring immunosuppressive treatment with corticosteroids. A secondary malignant T-cell lymphoproliferation occurred 2, 21, and 43 months, respectively, after marrow transplantation. In all three cases the lymphoid cells expressed T-cell surface antigens and were morphologically and immunophenotypically distinct from the malignant cells present before transplantation. One tumor was of host cell origin, one was probably of donor origin, and the tumor origin in the third case could not be determined. The authors were unable to find any evidence for EBV, human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I or II, human immunodeficiency virus, or human herpesvirus 6.

Specific basic proline-rich proteins in human parotid saliva possess significant anti-HIV-I activity independent of that attributable to SLPI or TSP-I. Since the inhibition is detectable with the MAGI assay, its mechanism of action involves virus-host cell interaction prior to the introduction of the tat gene product into the host cell and may be through the binding of the basic proline-rich proteins to the HIV-I gp120 coat of the virus.

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