L. Kavallierou, A. Provis, I. Zelenitsas, N. Tsibourakis,
P. Gargalianos, C. Politis.

3rd Regional Blood Transfusion Center and
*Unit of Infectious Diseases, General Hospital of Athens
“G. Gennimatas”.

Introduction: The prognostic value of anti-p24 in HIV infection is well documented. The usefulness of anti-p24 in HIV infection is well documented. However, the correlation between anti-p24 and the different stages of infection as well as the clinical manifestation and therapy require further estimation.

Material and Method: We studied 130 HIV seropositive subjects for the detection and quantitative determination of anti-p24. HIV seropositive subjects were classified according
a) to the CDC 93 classification into 9 sub-groups: A1=24, B1=6, C1=5, A2=28, B2=7, C2=10, A3=15, B3=6, C3=29
b) to their clinical manifestations into two groups (Group E1=36 with opportunistic infections or Sarc. Kaposi, group E2=94 without any other infection) and
c) to retroviral therapy (Group K1=98 receiving monotherapy or combination therapy and group K2=32 without any therapy).

Titres of anti-p24 were determined with the Elisa method, using three main protocols.

Results: Anti-p24 (x̄ ± SD) was significantly higher in HIV subjects of subgroups A1, B1 and C1 compared with the respective ones of subgroups A2, B2, C2 (t=6.493, p<0.001) as well as of subgroups A3, B3, C3 (t=3.486, p<0.001). The same significant difference was found between patients of subgroups A2, B2, C2 and A3, B3, C3 (t=8.697, p<0.001). Patients belonging to group E1 had decreased titres of anti-p24 in comparison with the respective ones without any infection (t=3.252, p=0.002). Moreover subjects of group K1 appeared to have higher levels of anti-p24 than subjects of group K2 (t=5.906, p<0.001).

Conclusion: There was a strong correlation between opportunistic infections and decreased titres of anti-p24. Antiretroviral therapy seems to permit the increase of anti-p24.