[Clinical aspects of AIDS at the Calmette hospital in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia A report on 356 patients hospitalized in the Medicine "B" Department of the Calmette Hospital].

A study on AIDS subjects carried out at the Calmette Hospital in Phnom-Penh between the 1st January 97 and the 30th December 98. The objective of this study was to describe the most frequent clinical manifestations as well as the opportunistic infections according to the 1993 CDC classification (purely clinical classification). Three hundred and fifty six AIDS patients hospitalized in medicine B were included in our study. A complete file was prepared for each subject, specifying his/her social and family situation, profession, sexual behavior and history. The clinical condition was specified and the paraclinical examinations were recorded. The average age was 35 years with 250 men and 106 women, i.e. a M/F sex ratio of 2.4. The majority of male contaminations were due to sexual relationships with multiple partners, 82%, and women with a single partner was of 78%. The use of condoms was of 60% (versus 40% occasional); the extent of drug-addiction was 1.12% (4 cases). A history of STD was found in 56% of cases. The presenting symptoms most frequently found were asthenia, anorexia, fever and weight-loss. In decreasing order, the clinical manifestations often associated were: weight-loss > 10% or a catechetic condition 58.70% (209/356), fever > 38 degrees C >1 month 53% (189/356), diarrhea (> one month) 41.60% (148/356). The most frequent opportunistic infections were: oral candidiasis 51.40% (183/356) and 40% are oro-oesophageal (oral candidiasis + dysphagia or odynphagia), pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculoses (TB) 43.50% (155/356) (pulmonary TB in 65.16%, TB of the lymph nodes 23.22% and disseminated TB and cerebral TB 11.61%), cryptococcal meningitis 11.80% (42/356) and pneumocystosis 6.50% (23/356), CMV retinitis 1.12% (4/356). The other opportunistic manifestations such as toxoplasmosis and Kaposis sarcoma are much more rarely encountered due to the difficulties of the paraclinical diagnosis. The mortality in the department was of 17.40% (62/356). In conclusions, tuberculosis is the most frequent of the opportunistic infections in Cambodia. Cryptococcal meningitis is in 3rd place for opportunistic infections. It is the first diagnosis that should be evoked in a meningeal irritation.