Human immunodeficiency virus testing in acute leukemia patients transfused between 1978 and 1985: a retrospective study on 91 cases.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) can be transmitted by blood transfusions. A recent report focused on the relativey high risk of HIV-1 infection in American patients treated for leukemia and multiply transfused as a consequence of therapy. We therefore conducted a retrospective study on the presence of HIV-1 antibodies among 91 acute leukemia patients diagnosed between 1978 and 1985, before the onset of routine tests for HIV-1 contamination of blood products. The transfusion requirement (platelet units, red blood cell concentrates) involved almost 7,000 donors. We did not find any case of seropositivity in patients transfused with units from the donor pool. The only case of HIV-1 seropositivity was due to a bone marrow transplant donor, retrospectively found to be HIV-1 seropositive. These results differ from the American data previously cited. This is probably due both to differences in diffusion of the HIV-1 infection in the two countries and to differences in the selection of the two donor populations. We conclude that the risk of contracting HIV-1 infections before 1985 through multiple transfusions from registered donors in our Italian area was very low, if not absent, not only for leukemia patients but reasonably for other categories of heavily transfused groups.