Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 5, 1986
The new virus, which has been designated HTLV-V by its discoverer, belongs to a family of retroviruses that includes two leukemia viruses and two varieties of the AIDS virus, one that causes disease and one that does not.
"There are more retroviruses that affect humans than we think, and they are likely to cause pathologies," the discoverer of the new virus, Dr. Vittorio Manzari, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Dr. Manzari, of the University of Rome, said, "It is still preliminary, but we think we have a strong association" between HTLV-V and lymphoma.
Hope for Lymphoma Victims
"What we are hoping to do is complete the characterization of the virus and describe how it is spread and how it works," added Dr. Manzari, whose collaborators include Dr. Luigi Frati, chairman of the university's department of experimental medicine.
The finding could ultimately lead to better treatment and prevention of lymphoma, but it has no immediate importance for victims of the disease, researchers said.
Hodgkin's disease, a form of lymphoma, and other lymphomas strike an estimated 16,500 Americans each year, according to the American Cancer Society. Hodgkin's disease causes about 600 deaths a year, and other lymphomas cause 7,000 deaths a year.
The virus, first isolated in 1984, was initially believed to be HTLV-I, a virus that causes T-cell leukemia, a rare form of cancer. In recent months, however, it has become clear that the virus is different, Dr. Manzari said.
Search for AIDS Virus
He said he could not yet determine what percentage of lymphoma cases might be caused by the new virus. He also said lymphoma associated with the virus had no symptoms that distinguished it from other cases of lymphoma.
Dani Bolognesi, a biologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C., said Dr. Manzari isolated the virus using materials intended to detect the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The AIDS virus is often designated HTLV-III.
"If there's a real cross there that's shared between these viruses, then there's a lot of interest from my part in trying to take the lid off this thing and find out how many viruses are out there like that," Dr. Bolognesi said.
In a symposiumu at the Wistar Institure in Philadelphia, Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute said Wednesday that Dr. Manzari had now isolated about five different samples of HTLV-V.
Dr. Manzari was formerly a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Gallo, who discovered HTLV-II, another leukemia virus, and who is one of the discoverers of the AIDS virus. The designation HTLV is short for human T-cell lymphotropic virus, referring to the propensity of the viruses to attack the white blood cells called T-cells.
HTLV-IV is another AIDS-like virus discovered in West Africa last year that appears not to cause disease.
The discovery by Dr. Manzari of HTLV-V follows several recent findings that combine to suggest that viruses may be the cause of many hitherto unexplained human illnesses.
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