@article{oai:nagasaki-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:00021973, author = {Gotoh, Hisashi and Takemoto, Tai-Ichiro and Izumi, Takashi and Moji, Kazuhiko and Hino, Shigeo and Miyamoto, Tsutomu}, issue = {1-4}, journal = {Acta medica Nagasakiensia}, month = {Dec}, note = {The transmission pathways of two oncogenic viruses, human Tlymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) are very similar : maternal, sexual and by transfusion. Furthermore, individuals infected with these viruses become lifelong virus carriers. Both of these viruses are known to be endemic in Nagasaki. In trying to correlate the endemicity of these viruses with the sociocultural attributes, such as birth place, religion, sex and age, we surveyed residents (2262 in total) aged over 40 years, in three islands of Nagasaki. Markers included anti-HTLV-1 antibody and HBV related markers (HBsAg/HBsAb) in sera. The prevalences of people infected with HTLV-1 in Mishima, Narao, and Oshima were 41.1, 29.3 and 12.9 %, respectively, while those of HBV were 55.8, 35.1 and 31.7 %, respectively. HTLV-1 and HBV were endemic in all three islands. The penetrations by two viruses seemed to be correlated with each other in each island. This profile was more discrete, if we analyzed people born in the respective islands. However, the evidence to suggest the preferred coinfection of these 2 viruses could not be demonstrated. These results suggested that the intermarriage in a closed community of islands had a favorable effect to maintain the endemicity of these viruses. Christians in these islands tend to intermarry within their religion. Of males in Oshima, Christians born on the same island were significantly more anti-HTLV-1 positive than non-Christians. Similarly, male Christians of Narao and Oshima showed significantly higher prevalence of HBV markers than non-Christians. The results were consistent with the conjecture. In the case of HTLV-1, while the prevalence increased with age in both sexes in highly endemic Mishima and Narao, it remained constant in less endemic Oshima. These profiles were also seen in the subjects born in the respective islands. The age related increase of the seropositive population could hardly be explained by the dominant horizontal infections. The age independent seroprevalence in Oshima rather suggested that human factors of each island played a siginificant role for the decreased frequency of maternal infections of HTLV-1 in these several decades in the other two islands. In contrast, the prevalence of HBV markers were relatively unaffected by age except for Mishima. This suggested that the maternal infection of HBV is more efficient and dominant than that of HTLV-1. In case of Mishima, the younger female showed significantly lower prevalence., Acta medica Nagasakiensia. 1991, 36(1-4), p.117-127}, pages = {117--127}, title = {Impacts of Sociocultural Condition on Regional Endemics of HTLV-1 and HBV among Islands in Southwestern Japan}, volume = {36}, year = {1991} }