Immunopathogenesis of Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type-1-Associated Myelopathy/Tropical Spastic Paraparesis: Recent Perspectives

Table 1

Clinical and pathological characteristics of HAM/TSP.

Clinical characteristics		References
Onset	Insidious, slowly progressive	[11]
Major clinical symptoms	Spastic paraparesis	[11]
	Sphincter dysfunction
	Mild sensory disturbance in the lower extremities
Complications	Uveitis	[14]
	Arthritis
	T-lymphocyte alveolitis
	Polymyositis
	Sjögren syndrome
Mean age at onset	43.8 years	[11]
Male-to-female ratio	1 : 2.3 (male : female)	[11]
Laboratory data	Positive anti-HTLV-1 antibody in both serum and CSF	[11]
	Moderate pleocytosis and raised protein content in CSF
Pathological characteristics		References
Spinal cord	Loss of myelin and axons in the lateral, anterior, and posterior columns-predominantly at the thoracic level	[27]
	Perivascular and parenchymal lymphocytic infiltration with the presence of foamy macrophages, proliferation of astrocytes, and fibrillary gliosis-predominantly at the thoracic level
Brain	Perivascular and parenchymal lymphocytic infiltration with the presence of foamy macrophages, proliferation of astrocytes, and fibrillary gliosis	[28]
	Perivascular inflammatory infiltration and fibrosis only in the cases with active-chronic lesions in the spinal cord. The composition of cell subsets was similar both in the spinal cord and in the brain
Peripheral nerve	Varying degrees of demyelination, remyelination, axonal degeneration, regeneration, and perineurial fibrosis	[29, 30]