Analysis of a model for the pathogenesis of AIDS.

According to a previously proposed mathematical model, the pathogenesis of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) could be explained by two phenomena: direct human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection of CD4+ T-cell populations and ongoing generation and selection of HIV mutants with increasing replicative capacity. In the present paper, the results obtained with this model are described in more detail. For different values of biologically interpretable parameters, the model predicts very different patterns of CD4+ T-cell decline after primary infection. With the assumption of a variability of 10% to 25% of three parameters between infected individuals, the model yields a realistic distribution curve of the incubation period to AIDS.