Individuals who are infected with human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) are at an increased risk for developing bronchiectasis, according to researchers at Imperial College London, who urge patients with HTLV-1 to be tested for bronchiectasis and for patients with unexplained bronchiectasis to be tested for HTLV-1.

Researchers studied a cohort of individuals seropositive for HTLV-1 who were categorized into HTLV-1 symptomatic patients and HTLV-1 asymptomatic carriers.

The researchers discovered that only one asymptomatic carrier had bronchiectasis, while 13 symptomatic patients had bronchiectasis. The odds of having bronchiectasis in symptomatic patients was 19.2-times as high.