Abstract

RODRIGUEZ, JAVIER et al. SET THEORY APPLIED TO LEUKOCYTES, LYMPHOCYTES AND CD4 IN POPULATIONS OF HIV PATIENTS: Prediction of T-CD4 lymphocytes, for clinical application. rev.fac.med [online]. 2011, vol.19, n.2, pp.148-156. ISSN 0121-5256.

Studies on the immune system leukocytes and lymphocytes populations evidence the loss of CD4 lymphocytes over time in the development of AIDS which has implications on the treatment start and follow-up as well as on the mortality prediction. A number of predictions have been developed regarding the CD4 variability and count. The aim of this paper is to predict the CD4 populations based on the information about the leukocytes and lymphocytes in the complete blood count through the set theory. With this purpose, starting from 7 data triplets of the amount of leukocytes/ml3, lymphocytes/ml3 and the CD4/μL sub-population through flux cytometry in specific patients, an induction that generated four A, B, C and D sets was developed. Based on those sets, 103 complete blood counts were quantified, by setting their belonging to each set according to the different distributions of the three populations with respect to ranges of 1000 leukocytes/ml3. Subsequently, A∪C, B∪D and the intersection between the two bonds were assessed. Finally, the number of elements composing these sets was determined as well as the belonging percentage in reference to the totality of cases in each range. A percentage of higher than 80% success for 5 of the 8 measured ranges became established, and the fact that the leukocytes ranges below 5000 a 4000/ml3can be associated to less than 570 CD4/ μL, with 90% and 100% effectiveness percentage, respectively, so that, as the amount of leukocytes decreases from the range of 6000, the percentage of correct forecasts between the three measures is more effective. In conclusion, the set theory applied to the leukocytes, lymphocytes, and CD4 populations reveals an objective mathematical auto-organization, which is reproducible and has clinical application for predicting CD4/μl ranges, whose use can reduce resources and costs.

Keywords : Complete blood count; CD4; HIV; AIDS; Set theory.

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