Lack of Correlation between Seminal and Plasma HIV-1 Viral Loads is Associated with CD4 T Cell Depletion in Therapy-naïve HIV-1 + Patients

The present study was conducted to investigate a possible correlation between plasma (PVL) and seminal viral load (SVL) on treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected patients in Vitória, ES, Brazil. We also evaluated whether the progressive immunosuppression associated with HIV disease (as evidenced by declining CD4 T cell counts) has any impact on the correlation between PVL and SVL HIV-1. Viral load on paired blood and semen samples from 56 consecutive treatment-naïve patients were evaluated and compared to CD4 cell counts. Viral load and T cell counts (cells/µl) were determined by NASBA and by flow cytometry, respectively. Overall, a strong positive correlation between PVL and SVL (rho = 0.438, p = 0.001) was observed. However, when patients were grouped according to their CD4 counts, this correlation was only significant among patients with CD4 counts>200 cells/µl. Results presented here demonstrate the existence of a strong correlation between PVL and SVL on patients with CD4 cell counts>200 cells/µl, suggesting that this association may correlate with disease progression.

Keywords
seminal viral load - plasmatic viral load - HIV - compartmentalization - CD4 T cell counts