AIDS-related cryptosporidial diarrhoea: an open study with roxithromycin.

In immunocompromised patients, cryptosporidial diarrhoea is a debilitating and potentially life-threatening infection for which no effective specific therapy exists. In an uncontrolled study of 24 AIDS patients with diarrhoea exclusively due to Cryptosporidium spp., treatment with roxithromycin, 300 mg bd for 4 weeks, produced symptomatic improvement of diarrhoea in 79% of cases, with 50% of patients achieving complete response. The response rate was 100% in a subgroup of five patients with no previous or concomitant opportunistic infections. In complete responders, improvement was rapid, occurring within 3-5 days, and the duration of response was at least 6 months. Response did not appear to be correlated with the degree of immunodeficiency. The most limiting adverse effects were abdominal pain (two patients), elevated hepatic enzymes (two patients) and abdominal pain with elevated hepatic enzymes (one patient). Minor symptoms, such as gastrointestinal upset, occurred in nine patients. We conclude that roxithromycin is relatively well tolerated and effective against cryptosporidial diarrhoea in AIDS patients. Further studies to optimize dosing regimens are required.

[Cognitive deficit assessment in asymptomatic HIV-infected females]. / Avaliacao de deficit cognitivo em portadores assintomaticas do virus da imunodeficiencia humana.

PIP: A sample of 16 asymptomatic female HIV carriers (in CDC stages I and II) infected heterosexually and a sample of 26 seronegative women hospitalized in Porto Alegre were studied in order to determine the nervous system manifestations of HIV infection. They answered the computerized version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to ascertain how the frontal lobe and the frontotemporal connection were functioning. There was a significant difference between cases and controls (p = 0.0132) with respect to the level of education. The cases performed worse in all measured parameters than the controls (p = 0.0060). The cases made a higher number of total errors (p = 0.00060), a higher percentage of perseverative errors (p = 0.00148) and nonperseverative errors (p = 0.0133). In order to find out whether a possible confounder was at play in the educational level, a stratified analysis was carried out. There was a significant difference between them regarding the total number of errors at the third grade educational level. Differences also appeared at the third grade level with regard to perseverative errors. There was also a significant difference between the two groups in the total number of errors (p 0.05) and perseverative errors (p 0.01) at the level of university education. Multivariate analysis (ANOVA) indicated that age did not alter either the percentage of errors or the number of perseverative responses. The level of education was of importance, but diagnosis was more important to the effect that it was significant in the multivariate equation. With respect to nonperseverative errors, which was altered by the level of education, this factor was isolated as the most important one which maintained significance in this type of analysis. This pilot project should be expanded in the future by applying neuropsychometric tests and depression and anxiety scales in order to confirm the validity of this evaluation.^ieng