Spinal cord pathology and viral burden in homosexuals and drug users with AIDS.

Shepherd, E J; Brettle, R P; Liberski, P P; Aguzzi, A; Ironside, J W; Simmonds, P; Bell, J E

doi:10.1046/j.1365-2990.1999.00152.x

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Shepherd, E. J., Brettle, R. P., Liberski, P. P., Aguzzi, A., Ironside, J. W., Simmonds, P., & Bell, J. E. (1999). Spinal cord pathology and viral burden in homosexuals and drug users with AIDS. Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology, 25(1), 2–10. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2990.1999.00152.x

Abstract

Unless treated with effective antiretroviral therapy many AIDS patients develop a characteristic vacuolar myelopathy of the spinal cord associated with moderate clinical disability. Opinion is divided as to whether vacuolar myelopathy is causally linked to HIV myelitis. To investigate this further, spinal cord pathology was assessed in 41 drug users, 33 homosexual men and 16 other patients, all with AIDS. Previous work has shown that HIV encephalitis is more common in Edinburgh drug users than in homosexual men. In the present study H