ORAL LESIONS IN THAI HETEROSEXUAL AIDS PATIENTS - A PRELIMINARY-STUDY

Objective To study the types of oral lesions in Thai heterosexual AIDS patients. Design Cross-sectional study and single centre. Setting Med ical ward of the Prince of Songkla University Hospital, Thailand, from June 1994 to May 1995. Subjects Heterosexual AIDS patients who had be en admitted because of opportunistic infections and/or neoplasms. Main outcome measures Types of oral lesions, opportunistic systemic diseas es present and drugs in use, as well as the lymphocyte count, were rec orded in each patient. Mycological investigations by the oral rinse te chnique were also performed. Results 41 patients were examined (32 mal e, 9 female; aged 19-53 years, median 29 years). Oral lesions were fou nd in 35 (85%) patients as follows: oral candidiasis (31), hairy leuko plakia (3), aphthous ulcer (3),linear gingival erythema (2), non-Hodgk in's lymphoma (2) and histoplasmosis (2). Candida albicans was isolate d in 31 patients. There was correlation between the clinical signs of oral candidiasis and the colony-forming units of Candida (Mann-Whitney U test; two-tailed P = 0.0007). Conclusions Oral candidiasis was the most common lesion. It is of interest that non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was the only neoplasm detected. We conclude that oral lesions among Thai h eterosexual AIDS patients may differ from those in other countries.