THURSDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Symptoms of urinary infection in patients with human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) may be an early warning of neurological disease, according to study findings published in the May issue of Urology.
Néviton Matos de Castro, M.D., of the Universidade Federal da Bahia in Salvador, Brazil, and colleagues used a questionnaire to ask 218 patients who were seropositive for HTLV-1 about urinary symptoms and general quality of life.
Symptoms of urinary problems were widely reported: 35.8 percent of patients reported nocturia, 29.8 percent reported incontinence, 25.2 percent said they had urgency while 22 percent and 15.6 percent reported frequency and dysuria, respectively. The symptoms had a negative impact on quality of life, the report indicates.
"These manifestations could not be explained by sex, urinary tract infection or the occurrence of other neurologic diseases," the authors write. "Even HTLV-1 subjects considered not to have HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis may have prominent urinary findings already present. Urologic manifestations, including nocturia and urinary loss, might be early manifestations of neurologic disease in those with HTLV-1," they conclude.
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