Neurologic manifestations of AIDS: a review of fifty cases in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil.

OBJECTIVE

To review the neurologic manifestations of AIDS in patients who were admitted to Hospital Guilherme Alvaro (HGA) due to any clinical manifestation of the disease.

DESIGN

Case series.

PATIENTS

All HIV+ patients admitted to the Faculty Hospital (HGA) between July 96 and April 97 were included in this review.

RESULTS

From the 117 HIV+ patients admitted to hospitalization due to AIDS-related symptoms, 50 (42.7%) presented neurologic manifestations. The most prevalent of these was neurotoxoplasmosis (68%), but a variety of other neurologic diseases were observed. Only 36% of these 50 patients had neurological signs and symptoms as the main complaint for admission, 12% of the patients had at least complained of some neurologic dysfunction at the time of admission and 10% had no neurologic complaints at all. The remaining 42% (21 patients) only complained of neurologic manifestations of AIDS when specifically asked.

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of neurologic manifestations of AIDS is very high in patients admitted to hospital. Even in the absence of neurologic-related complaints, these patients have to be carefully questioned and examined in the search for an underlying neurologic complication which may present high morbidity and mortality.