Talk:Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy

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[edit] Better statistics and sourcing needed

I reverted one of the changes made by anonymous editor 81.62.11.30, who replaced "Most patients die within four months of onset" with "If the immune system is not immediately reconstituted, patients die within four months of onset. Patients who survive PML may nonetheless be severly disabled from the disease." First, what does "immediately reconstituted" mean, and are there any specific examples? In the case of most AIDS patients with PML (and all the ones I've seen), by the time they're diagnosed with PML, the immune system is already pretty far gone and "immediate reconstitution" just doesn't happen - certainly not more immediate than four months. As for survivors, I'd like to see a study.

Anyway, this all gets back to the need for sourcing. I'm under the impression that HAART has made a difference - though some say that as patients survive longer with HIV, incidence of some neurological diseases has actually gone up - but I need to do a journal review to get the real numbers. If someone who has more time can do this quicker than me, please do. But I'd like to avoid any further changes to the article that make claims without references. If that means eliminating some of the current content until the original sources can be tracked down, so be it. ←Hob 01:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

(Also removed this: "though the incidence of PML in AIDS patients is believed to have come down since the advent of HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapies) which allow rapid reconsitution of the AIDS-compromised immune system." "Believed" is too vague, and "rapid reconstitution" is misleading.) ←Hob 03:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References temporarily removed

User:Arcadian kindly added these references, but I'm parking them here until I can read the articles and connect them to some actual facts in our article. I have a long reading list now - lots of publications on PML in the last two years, trying to weed out what's redundant.

  • Koralnik, I.J. (2004) New insights into progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. Current Opinions in Neurology 17, 365-370. PMID 15167073
  • Kunschner, L. and Scott, T.F. (2005) Sustained recovery of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy after treatment with IL-2. Neurology 65, 1510. PMID 16275856
  • Du Pasquier, R.A., Kuroda, M.J., Zheng, Y., Jean-Jacques, J., Letvin, N.L. and Koralnik, I.J. (2004) A prospective study demonstrates an association between JC virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes and the early control of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. Brain 127, 1970-1978. PMID 15215217

←Hob 04:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)