ABSTRACT
A middle-aged woman with neutropenia and ataxia was found to have raised plasma zinc and profoundly low plasma copper concentrations. When found that she had been prescribed 135 mg zinc/day for seven years, a diagnosis of zinc-induced copper deficiency was made. After the zinc prescription was stopped, her copper and zinc concentrations and neutropenia normalized but she only had partial improvement in neurological status. The diagnosis of zinc-induced copper deficiency can be facilitated by the laboratory through measurement of plasma zinc concentration in patients with a low plasma copper concentration.
Subject(s)
Copper/deficiency , Deficiency Diseases/chemically induced , Zinc/administration & dosage , Deficiency Diseases/diagnosis , Female , Humans , Middle AgedABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To examine the suggestion, based on theoretical considerations and case reports, that pregnancy decreases survival time after AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). DESIGN: A total population study in Edinburgh. SETTING: A city with a moderately high prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in women. SUBJECTS: AIDS has been diagnosed in 22 women, five of whom had a pregnancy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical characteristics, disease presentation, lymphocyte markers, pregnancy outcome, subsequent progress and survival time. RESULTS: Pregnancy was not obviously associated with a difference in clinical findings. The mean survival time for the three women with a pregnancy who died was 24 months and for the 11 women without a pregnancy it was 15 months. (P = 0.63 log rank test). CONCLUSIONS: The clinical presentation, severity of the illness and laboratory findings were not obviously different in pregnancy. All three women who had Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia for the first time in pregnancy survived this initial episode. Survival time was not obviously reduced by the conjunction of pregnancy with AIDS.
