Immunological correlates of disease severity in pediatric slow progressors with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection

Pediatric slow progressors are a group of HIV-1-infected individuals who are homogeneous for route and length of infection and standard of care and are therefore amenable to cross-sectional population studies on the immunological correlates of disease progression. We report here that both clinical and immunological categorizations of pediatric slow progressors based on the 1994 CDC criteria for symptom and immunosupression severity levels yield similar immunological findings: declining proportions of CD4 T cells are associated with increasing proportions of CD8 and CD4-CD8- T cells and with declining IL-2, -5, and -10 production levels by peripheral blood cells in response to the T cell-dependent mitogen, phytohemagglutinin, but not to the T and B cell-dependent mitogen from pokeweed. The latter cross-sectional results point to potential prognostic and nosologic markers and therapeutic targets among HIV-infected pediatric slow progressors. Longitudinal studies will help to assess further the relevance of these findings.