Background and methods: We describe four patients without major risk factors for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, each of whom presented with severe opportunistic infections and was found to have idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia. We performed assays to detect the presence of retroviruses and undertook immunophenotyping of subgroups of peripheral-blood lymphocytes.
Results: The opportunistic infections at presentation included Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, cryptococcal meningitis (two patients, one with concurrent pulmonary tuberculosis), and histoplasma-induced brain abscess. During 10 to 68 months of observation, none of the four patients had evidence of infection with HIV type 1 or 2 or human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I or II on the basis of epidemiologic, serologic, or polymerase-chain-reaction studies or culture, nor was there any detectable reverse transcriptase activity. Although all the patients had severe, persistent CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia (range, 12 to 293 cells per cubic millimeter), the CD4+ cell count progressively declined in only one and was accompanied by multiple opportunistic infections. All four patients had significantly reduced numbers of circulating CD8+ T cells, natural killer cells, or B cells (or all three).
Conclusions: These four patients had idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia with opportunistic infections but no evidence of HIV infection. Instead of the progressive, selective depletion of CD4+ T cells characteristic of HIV infection, some patients with idiopathic immunodeficiency have stable CD4+ cell counts accompanied by reductions in the levels of several other lymphocyte subgroups.