PMID: 16614624Apr 15, 2006Paper

Nonopportunistic neurologic manifestations of the human immunodeficiency virus: an Indian study.

MedGenMed : Medscape General Medicine
Alaka K Deshpande, Mrinal M Patnaik

Abstract

HIV-1 is a neurotropic virus. In a resource-limited country such as India, large populations of affected patients now have access to adequate chemoprophylaxis for opportunistic infections (OIs), allowing them to live longer. Unfortunately the poor availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has allowed viral replication to proceed unchecked. This has resulted in an increase in the debilitating neurologic manifestations directly mediated by the virus. The main objective of this study was to identify and describe in detail the direct neurologic manifestations of HIV-1 in antiretroviral treatment (ART)-naive, HIV-infected patients (excluding the neurologic manifestations produced by opportunistic pathogens). Three hundred successive cases of HIV-1 infected, ART-naive patients with neurologic manifestations were studied over a 3-year period. Each case was studied in detail to identify and then exclude manifestations due to opportunistic pathogens. The remaining cases were then analyzed specially in regard to their occurrence and the degree of immune suppression (CD4+ cell counts). The study was carried out in an apex, tertiary, referral care center for HIV/AIDS in India. All patients were admitted for a detailed an...Continue Reading

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