ABDOMINAL EMERGENCIES IN AIDS PATIENTS

This is a report on five patients suffering from AIDS who underwent em ergency abdominal surgery: One patient with gangrenous appendicitis, t hree with a small bowel perforation and a third with a colonic bleedin g. The first outlived the appendectomy by seven month; the second and the third the small bowel resection by eight weeks resp. by 10 weeks. The fourth died four weeks after hemicolectomy and a relaparotomy with colonic resection for profuse bleeding. The fifth died because of inf iltration of the heart by a malignant lymphoma. None of the patients d eveloped any complications due to surgery. A review is given on emerge ncies caused by abdominal diseases which a surgeon must be aware of in patients with AIDS. The palliative character of surgery in these pati ents is stressed.