Oral candidiasis in HIV-AIDS patients associated with CD4 T lymphocyte levels and antiretroviral therapy

Introduction: oral candidiasis is the most common opportunistic infection in HIV-infected patients, and on many occasions it is the first manifestation of the disease. Objective: determine the association between oral candidiasis, CD4 lymphocyte levels and antiretroviral treatment in HIV/AIDS patients. Methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted. The study population was 141 patients diagnosed as HIV-positive. All clinical intraoral examinations were performed by the same examiner. Data about CD4 lymphocyte levels and antiretroviral therapy were obtained from the patients’ medical records. The information was processed with the statistical package Stata v11. Results: 66.7 % of the study population were men. Sexual transmission was the most common form of transmission (96 %). Prevalence of oral manifestations associated with HIV was 59.5 %; the most common form of the disease was pseudomembranous candidiasis (31.3 %), followed by erythematous candidiasis (4.2 %). With respect to pseudomembranous candidiasis and CD4 levels, 22 patients had CD4 values below 200 cell/mL3, and 29 were undergoing antiretroviral therapy with two drug groups: IP/INTR. Conclusion: pseudomembranous candidiasis is highly correlated with CD4 lymphocyte levels below 200 cell/mm3. Patients under antiretroviral monotherapy presented less candidiasis than those under bitherapy.