Neurologic aspects of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected children followed at the instituto de puericultura martagão gesteira

THESIS

Neurologic aspects of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected children followed at the instituto de puericultura martagão gesteira (abstract)^*. Thesis. Rio de Janeiro, 1992

Alexandra Prufer de Queiroz-Campos Araújo^**

The number of children infected by HIV has been increasing. The frequency of central nervous system (CNS) involvement has varied among authors, coming up to 90%. On behalf of these observations, a transversal descriptive study was designed, to verify the neurological aspects of the children attending the unit for HIV infection of Instituto de Puericultura e Pediatria Martagão Gesteira of the UFRJ.

CNS involvement was observed in 41.2% of 63 infected children. Neurological manifestations were detected only in patients classified as P-2 according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Of those with neurologic findings, developmental delay (n=14; 53%), weakness (n=8; 30.8%) and microcephaly (n=7; 27%) were the most frequent ones. Coma (n=2; 7.7%) and convulsions (n=4; 15.4%) were associated with complications of HIV infection in this group of children, with exception of one patient whose convulsions could not be linked to any apparent complication. The overall neurologic features, including investigations and postmortem findings, were, as a whole, as those described previously by other authors.

Because only few of these children have been examined by the child neurologist and because CNS involvement is reasonably common, this specialist should probably be sought more often.

Still more effort could be used to prevent transfusional transmission of HIV , which was shown to be quite high in this group (25.3%).

Key words: human immunodeficiency virus, central nervous system, children.

*

Aspectos neurológicos de crianças infectadas pelo vírus da imunodeficiência humana (HIV) acompanhadas no Instituto de Puericultura Martagão Gesteira (Resumo). Tese de Mestrado, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ (Departamento de Pediatria). Orientadores: Kalil Madi, Osvaldo J. M. Nascimento.

**

Address: Rua Gildasio Amado 55/1011 - 22631-020 Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 Jan 2011
• Date of issue
  Mar 1995