Expansion of the cerebral ventricles and correlation with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome neuropathology in 232 patients.

BACKGROUND

Expansion of the cerebral ventricles is highly prevalent in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The mechanism remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to correlate the volume of the cerebral ventricles with histopathologic abnormalities in the brain.

METHODS

At autopsy, the volume of the cerebral ventricles in brain slices was estimated planimetrically in 232 patients with AIDS and 77 age-appropriate controls. Estimated volumes were compared with the neuropathologic results using multiple regression analysis.

RESULTS

Multiple regression analysis demonstrated a significant relationship between ventricular volume and cerebral cytomegalovirus infection (P < .0004). When human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) encephalitis with multinucleated cells was present, median volume did not differ significantly from other subjects with AIDS. In 11 patients who had HIV-1 proviral DNA detected using the polymerase chain reaction, average volume was not different from 22 patients who tested negatively using polymerase chain reaction. Ventricular expansion did not have a clear-cut neuropathologic substrate in many instances.

CONCLUSIONS

In some subjects with AIDS, cytomegalovirus encephalitis was the underlying neuropathologic lesion associated with ventricular expansion. Key indicators of brain HIV-1 infection were related either weakly or not at all, and the role of HIV-1 remains uncertain in most cases.