This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Pietro Cocchi, MD; Cesare Cocchi, Jr, MD
University of Florence Florence,Italy

JAMA. 1990;263(1):37.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

As reported by Dalakas and colleagues,¹ human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is not only lymphotropic but also neurotropic and can invade the central and peripheral nervous systems early, resulting in a latent or overt infection.

The neurotropism of HIV should not be entirely surprising if this retrovirus is to be considered a human representative of the lentivirus subfamily. The primary neuropathy, which seems to be a direct result of HIV infection of the central nervous system (CNS), has important pathological and clinical implications.

In adults, neurological symptoms may sometimes be the sole manifestations of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.² In pediatric patients, the CNS is often the primary site of HIV infection rather than the immune system, and the neuropathy may progress even with minimal immunologic abnormalities,³ indicating that neural tissue is a principal target of the retrovirus. In infants and children we have observed intellectual . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?