Clinical Overview of HIV Disease

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Table 1: The 1993 AIDS Surveillance Case Definition of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A diagnosis of AIDS is made whenever a person is HIV positive and:

he or she has a CD4 + cell count <200 cells/µL, or
his or her CD4 + cells account for <14% of all lymphocytes, or
that person has been diagnosed with one or more of the AIDS-defining illnesses listed below.

AIDS-defining illnesses:

Candidiasis of bronchi, trachea, or lungs
Candidiasis, esophageal
Cervical cancer, invasive *
Coccidioidomycosis, disseminated
Cryptococcosis, extrapulmonary
Cryptosporidiosis, chronic intestinal (>1-month duration)
Cytomegalovirus disease (other than liver, spleen, or lymph nodes)
Cytomegalovirus retinitis (with loss of vision)
Encephalopathy, HIV related # (see Dementia)
Herpes simplex: chronic ulcer(s) (>1-month duration) or bronchitis, pneumonitis, or esophagitis
Histoplasmosis, disseminated
Isosporiasis, chronic intestinal (>1-month duration)
Kaposi sarcoma
Lymphoma, Burkitt
Lymphoma, immunoblastic
Lymphoma, primary, of brain (primary central nervous system lymphoma)
Mycobacterium avium complex or disease caused by M kansasii , disseminated
Disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis , any site (pulmonary * or extrapulmonary # )
Disease caused by Mycobacterium , other species, or unidentified species, disseminated
Pneumocystis jiroveci (formerly carinii ) pneumonia
Pneumonia, recurrent *
Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy
Salmonella septicemia, recurrent
Toxoplasmosis of brain (encephalitis)
Wasting syndrome caused by HIV infection #

Additional illnesses that are AIDS defining in children, but not adults

Multiple, recurrent bacterial infections #
Lymphoid interstitial pneumonia/pulmonary lymphoid hyperplasia

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(a) Centers for Disease Control. 1993 Revised classification system for HIV infection and expanded surveillance case definition for AIDS among adolescents and adults. MMWR Morb Mort Wkly Rep 1992; 41(RR-17):1-19.

* Added in the 1993 expansion.

# Added in the 1987 expansion.

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C. Bradley Hare, MD, University of California San Francisco
January 2006
From the HIV InSite Knowledge Base