Fourty four patients with Adult T cell leukemia (ATL) have been treated in many hospitals in Kanagawa prefecture. 28 of these patints were born in ATL endemic area, southwest of Japan. 7 of them were in Kanagawa prefecture, and most of 7 were born in Miura hemiisland. Clinical features are same that of endemic area.
Positive rate of HTLV-I antibody in hemodialyzed patients were 5.7%, about tenfold of non-hemodialyzed patients. Cause of HTLV-I infection of them is thoght to be mainly due to blood transfusion. The number of HTLV-I carriers in Kanagawa prefecture are speculated to be 40,000∼80,000.
Scrrening of sera for the HTLV-I antibody is necessary to prevent the virus transmission due to blood transfusion.
