14th International AIDS Conference Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. B10175)

Okiror J, Otim T, Segonga P
Medical Technologist, Kampala, Uganda

BACKGROUND: To determine correlation between CD4 levels with absolute lymphocyte counts in clients who were seen for the first time at JCRC. In third world countries such as Uganda where flowcytometry is not readily available, it is advocated that a white cell count of less than 1000/cm predicts CD4 levels of less than 200/cm. The CD4 cells being a sub-set of the lymphocytes (WBC) population, it would be of interest to see the relationship between the two. A random sample of blood from clients was retrospectively analysed to find out whether this was so in Uganda.

METHOD: A total of 378 adult HIV+VE clients of both sexes were tested for both complete blood count (CBC) and CD4 levels at their first visit at JCRC. They were adults seen in the clinics between the month of January 2001 to June 2001. The CBC was done using coulter T890 blood analyser and the CD4 levels were determined by flowcytometry using the BD FacScan. The results for the absolute lymhocyte count were analysed against the CD4 levels using Regression analysis.

RESULTS: There was a slight correlation between the absolute lymphocyte count and the CD4 absolute count (0.520). In fact this analysis show that the predictive value is only upto 4%.

CONCLUSION: This shows that using absolute lymphocyte counts alone as a predictive marker for estimating CD4 levels does not give an accurate assessment of a patient's immune status. In third world countries where flowcytometry is not readily available or very expensive there is need to research more into cheaper tests such as the TRAx CD4 Elisa or any other alternatives for CD4 estimation.

020707
B10175

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