AIDS surveillance in haemophilia

Abstract

We suspected a patient attending our Haemophilia Centre had developed Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and therefore immunological evaluation was performed on 43 patients with haemophilia and von Willebrand's disease attending the Centre. The index patient died of Pneumocytis carinii pneumonia. Thirty-one patients had either abnormal T cell subsets or helper/suppressor ratios. Thirty-two patients had hypergammaglobulinaemia. There was no direct correlation between these immunological abnormalities and the total amount or type of treatment received. T cell abnormalities were not confined to the 13 patients who had received the same batches of concentrate as the index case. The index case simultaneously contracted hepatitis B. He was the only patient to receive a large amount of the suspect batches of concentrate, not previously immune to hepatitis B.