Investigating Virus Transmission in HTLV-1 Infected People

Human T-Cell lipotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is the first human retrovirus that was discovered in 1980 in America in Dr. Callo's laboratory by Powez. In that history, Dr. Powez and his colleagues studied a patient with skin lymphoma. In this study, they concluded that patients infected with HTLV-1 have a poor oral and dental health status compared to the other group, and also observed a weak positive relationship between viral load in blood and saliva, and also a direct relationship between viral load found in saliva with oral manifestations.Martin S and his colleagues in a study in 2010 investigated the oral clinical manifestations of HTLV-1 infection in Brazilian adult patients. They studied 139 patients, of which 112 patients had HTLV-1 and 26 patients had HTLV- 2 and 1 patient had both HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 diseases. The most common clinical manifestations observed in these patients included rhizostomia, candida, furrowed tongue and lack of lingual papilla.