Idiopathic CD4+ T-Lymphocytopenia -- An Analysis of Five Patients with Unexplained Opportunistic Infections

Low CD4+ T-lymphocyte counts are rare in the absence of immunosuppressive therapy or diseases associated with immunodeficiency, most commonly infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In recent years, case reports describing persons with unexplained or idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia, many of whom had serious opportunistic infections, have appeared in the medical literature 1 – 13 . Additional cases were described anecdotally at the Eighth International Conference on AIDS and Third Sexually Transmitted Diseases World Congress in Amsterdam. Since then, three groups have described preliminary findings indicating a possible viral cause for this condition 14 , 15 . Over the past two years, we have . . .