Lack of Correlation between Seminal and Plasma HIV-1 Viral Loads is Associated with CD4 T Cell Depletion in Therapy-naive HIV-1 super(+) Patients

The present study was conducted to investigate a possible correlation between plasma (PVL) and seminal viral load (SVL) on treatment-naive HIV-1-infected patients in Vitoria, ES, Brazil. We also evaluated whether the progressive immunosuppression associated with HIV disease (as evidenced by declining CD4 T cell counts) has any impact on the correlation between PVL and SVL HIV-1. Viral load on paired blood and semen samples from 56 consecutive treatment-naive patients were evaluated and compared to CD4 cell counts. Viral load and T cell counts (cells/ mu l) were determined by NASBA and by flow cytometry, respectively. Overall, a strong positive correlation between PVL and SVL (rho = 0.438, p = 0.001) was observed. However, when patients were grouped according to their CD4 counts, this correlation was only significant among patients with CD4 counts > 200 cells/ mu l. Results presented here demonstrate the existence of a strong correlation between PVL and SVL on patients with CD4 cell counts > 200 cells/ mu l, suggesting that this association may correlate with disease progression.