Epithelioid angiomatosis affecting the oral cavity as a first sign of HIV infection.

Oral lesions are frequently the first manifestation of HIV infection and accurate diagnosis may be important in determining the management of individual patients. Lesions may be relatively common but non-specific, such as candidosis, or may be indicative of AIDS, such as Kaposi's sarcoma. Epithelioid angiomatosis is a recently described vascular lesion which may be clinically and histologically similar to Kaposi's sarcoma, but which is infective in origin. Usually it is a manifestation of AIDS and presents as multiple cutaneous lesions but has rarely been reported in the mouth. In this report a patient presented with lesions of epithelioid angiomatosis which were confined to the oral mucosa and which were associated with HIV infection, but not with AIDS. Differentiation from Kaposi's sarcoma is important, since epithelioid angiomatosis may be treated with antibiotics and a mistaken diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma may wrongly categorise an individual as having AIDS.