Neurological disorders during HIV-1 infection correlate with viral load in cerebrospinal fluid but not with virus phenotype.

Objectives: To verify the compartmentalization of HIV-1 within the central nervous system (CNS) and to define whether viral phenotype of HIV-1 isolates from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples and CSF viral load correlate with the presence and type of neurological disorders.

Methods: A total of 33 HIV-1-infected patients with and without neurological disorders were included in the study. HIV-1 isolation from paired CSF and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples was attempted by a standard cocultivation technique; the biological phenotype of HIV-1 isolates was assessed by the MT-2 cell assay.

Measurement of viral sequences in cerebrospinal fluid of AIDS patients with cerebral white-matter lesions using polymerase chain reaction.

Objectives: To optimize the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for the evaluation of central nervous system (CNS) white-matter lesions that along with clinical findings and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can allow a definite diagnosis to be made; also to evaluate treatment with zidovudine plus foscarnet.

Design And Methods: Fifteen AIDS patients with uncertain CNS white-matter lesions were identified. HIV-1 RNA, cytomegalovirus (CMV) and JC virus (JCV) DNA were measured in a total of 29 CSF samples.

[Electroencephalographic aspects of classic agyria-pachygyria].

Four infants had agyria confirmed by CT scan. All were mentally retarded, microcephalic, 3 of them having characteristic facial dysmorphy and 2 infantile spasms. EEG was characterized by very high amplitude rhythms in the alpha range, associated with delta waves and with infrequent spikes.

Planned release dihydroergotamine in common migraine and "tension-vascular headache": multicentre clinical trial.

The antimigraine efficacy of dihydroergotamine methanesulphonate in the pharmaceutical form of planned release capsules has been evaluated. Forty-nine subjects were treated, 39 suffering from common migraine 10 from tension vascular headache, for a period of 90 days, with an oral dose of 15 mg twice daily. The product was found to be efficacious in 71% of the common migraine cases, while unsatisfactory or nil results were obtained in the remaining 29%.