Blood-Handling Precautions and the Human T-Leukemia Virus

Excerpt

To the editor: We are writing to promote discussion of the problems of infection control as they relate to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Recent articles (1, 2) have addressed the possible role of retroviruses, specifically human T-leukemia virus (HTLV), in the etiology of this syndrome. Included in these articles have been studies in which sera from patients with the syndrome were found to contain antibodies to HTLV, whereas sera from controls did not (2).

In our institution, serologic screening of two patients, one with T-cell lymphoma and one with mycosis fungoides complicated by T-cell immunoblastic sarcoma, showed the presence of