Prevalence of oral lesions in HIV patients related to CD4 cell count and viral load in a Venezuelan population

Abstract

Aim: To determine the prevalence of oral lesions in a HIV+ group of patients, related to CD4 cell count and viral load in a Venezuelan population.

Materials and methods: In the present study, we evaluated 75 HIV+ adult patients, attended at the Center of Infectious Diseases, at the Faculty of Dentistry, Central University of Venezuela. Each patient was clinically examined for detection of oral mucosal lesions. In addition, CD4 cell count was determined by flow cytometry, as well as viral load by RT-PCR (Amplicor HIV-RNA, TM test 1.5, Roche).

Results: 85% (64/75) of HIV/AIDS patients showed associated HIV lesions. Oral Candidiasis constituted the most common lesion representing a 61% (39/64), followed by Oral Hairy Leukoplakia 53% (34/64); Oral Leukoplakia 34% (22/64), Melanic Hyperpigmentation 38% (18/64); Papilloma 13 (6/64), Lineal Gingival Erythema 8% (5/64); Aphtous Recurrent Stomatitis 5% (4/64) and Kaposi's Sarcoma 5% (3/64). Only one case of the following lesions were represented by Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, Multifocal Epithelial Hyperplasia, Recurrent Herpes, Histoplasmosis and Molluscum Contagiosum. The patients with a viral load of 30.000 copies/mm3 exhibited oral lesions related with HIV, independent of CD4 cell count, although patients with CD4+ levels of 200 cel/mm3 were more susceptible to develop these lesions.

Conclusions: The most common oral lesion was Oral Candidiasis followed by Oral Hairy Leukoplakia, Oral Leukoplakia and Melanic Hyperpigmentation. A high viral load was strongly associated to the oral lesions occurrence independently of CD4+ cell count.