Clinical characteristics of forty-four cases of acute HIV-1 infection

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical, immunological and virological characteristics of HIV-1 infected patients in the acute phase, for the sake of improving the diagnosis of acute infection with HIV-1. Methods We retrospectively analyzed the clinical manifestation and laboratory data of patients with acute HIV-1 infection who were admitted to the Center of Infectious Diseases, Guangzhou Eighth People’s Hospital from January 2012 to June 2017. Results Forty-four patients were enrolled into the study, 86.4% of them were male. 59.1% patients were homosexually transmitted. Clinical symptoms and signs mostly consisted of fever (84.1%), lymphadenopathy (56.8%) and so on, while 15.9% patients had central nervous system symptoms. Most common opportunistic infection included lung infection (50.0%) and oropharyngeal candidiasis (22.7%). Leucopenia (10 patients, 22.7%), and decreased CD4+ T cell count (267.5 cells/μl), inverted CD4+ /CD8+ ratio (86.4%) was mostly seen. Compared to patients who had HIV RNA load less than 6 lg copies/ml, the group of patients who had HIV RNA load more than 6 lg copies/ml had lower levels of CD4+ T cells (t=-3.724, P=0.001). Conclusions Patients with acute HIV infection have many different kinds of clinical symptoms and can be accompanied by opportunistic infection, and with high viremia. Key words: HIV-1; Acute infection; Clinical manifestation; CD4+ T lymphocyte