Four patients with human-immuno-deficiency-virus-associated neurological disease were treated with 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine (AZT). Three (two with chronic dementia, and one with chronic dementia and peripheral neuropathy) improved as assessed by clinical examination, psychometric tests, nerve conduction studies, and/or positron emission tomography; there was no improvement in the fourth patient who presented with paraplegia. These results support the hypothesis that certain AIDS-virus-associated neurological abnormalities are reversible by antiretroviral chemotherapy.

The effects of two strictly controlled diets, one rich in complex carbohydrates, the other rich in olive oil, on serum lipids were studied in healthy men and women. Serum cholesterol levels fell on average by 0.44 mmol/l in the carbohydrate group and 0.46 mmol/l in the olive oil group. HDL cholesterol levels fell by 0.19 mmol/l in the carbohydrate group and rose by 0.03 mmol/l in the olive oil group. Serum triglycerides rose by 0.19 mmol/l in the carbohydrate group and fell by 0.06 mmol/l in the olive oil group. The changes in both HDL and triglycerides were larger in men than in women. These results clearly show that the olive-oil-rich diet, unlike the complex-carbohydrate-rich diet, caused a specific fall in non-HDL cholesterol while leaving serum triglyceride levels virtually unchanged.

In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 2-year multicentre study intrathecally administered natural human fibroblast interferon (IFN-B) was effective in reducing exacerbations of multiple sclerosis (MS) in patients with exacerbating/remitting disease. The mean reduction in exacerbation rate of 34 patients who received IFN-B (recipients) was significantly greater during the study than that of 35 patients who received placebo (p less than 0.04). The prestudy exacerbation rates were comparable in recipients and controls, but the rate at the end of the study was significantly lower in recipients than in controls (p less than 0.001). IFN-B was given by nine or ten lumbar punctures over the first 6 months of the study, and patient observations continued for 2 years. IFN-B was well tolerated in 95% of the recipients, and the side-effects experienced were clearly acceptable for the benefits achieved. Low doses of indomethacin reduced the toxicity of IFN-B and played an important role in successful double-blinding.

A new method based on the reported incubation period of transfusion-associated AIDS was used to estimate the number of AIDS cases likely to arise in the USA among those infected before 1986. Between 1986 and 1991 102,000 new cases are projected, with a total cumulative incidence of 135,000 AIDS cases. These estimates do not account for new infections after 1985 nor very long incubation periods and are thus the smallest numbers to be expected. Even if new infections can be effectively prevented, the epidemic will be five times larger than the number of cases observed so far.

Kaposi's sarcoma has many unusual features: for example, the pronounced male preponderance; its appearance in "crops" rather than as primary tumour with metastases; a substantial rate of spontaneous remission; the predictability of involved sites; the lack of aneuploidy; and the strong association with immunodeficiency. These features and other evidence suggest that it is not a malignant neoplasm but a benign, potentially controllable and reversible hyperplasia.

A self-contained enzymic membrane immunoassay (SCEMIA) system has been developed for the detection of viral antigens in clinical samples. The assay system makes use of antiviral antibodies bound to a nylon membrane, a flow-through washing procedure, and a clearly visible endpoint of the enzymic reaction. A SCEMIA system with antibodies against rotavirus detected rotavirus antigen, within 15 min, in all faecal samples from children with gastroenteritis that were positive for antigen in a standard microplate enzyme immunoassay, which took 4 h to complete. In addition, the SCEMIA could detect rotavirus in faecal samples collected from infected individuals both before and after antigen could be detected by a standard immunoassay system. Rotavirus antigen was not detectable in control children who did not have evidence of rotavirus infection. SCEMIA systems are an accurate, rapid, and inexpensive means for the practical diagnosis of viral infections in human beings.

Vitreous humour from chronic idiopathic vitritis (CIV) patients containing 0.5-0.7 micron diameter bacteria-like bodies (BLB) in polymorphonuclear leucocytes was inoculated into the eyelids of 100 mice. 200 control mice received either eye-bank vitreous or saline. After 12 months, 53 mice that received CIV vitreous, but none of the controls, had clinical signs of ocular inflammation (p less than 0.05); 15 of the mice that received CIV vitreous and none of the controls had histological evidence of chronic deep ocular inflammation, including vitritis (p less than 0.05); 95 CIV-vitreous-inoculated and 38 control mice were dead (p less than 0.05); and 3/3 of the CIV-vitreous group, compared with 0/3 controls, that were killed for histological assessment had phagolysosomal BLB identical to those in the CIV-vitreous inocula. The findings indicate that the BLB are pathogenic for mice.

500 consecutive Danish women who had full-term babies were interviewed on the third or fourth day post partum and asked about smoking in all household members. Exposure to smoking by the mother was found to reduce birth-weight, and indirect or passive exposure to smoking by the father had nearly as large (66%) an effect. On average, birth-weight was reduced by 120 g per pack of cigarettes (or cigar/pipe equivalent) smoked per day by the father. This relation remained statistically significant after controlling for mother's age, parity, alcohol and tobacco consumption during pregnancy, illness during pregnancy, and social class and sex of the baby. The effect of passive smoking was greatest in the lower social classes.