Risk factors for rapid progression from hairy leukoplakia to AIDS: a nested case-control study.

To determine risk factors for early progression from oral hairy leukoplakia to AIDS, this case-control study compared 27 patients who had not progressed to AIDS within 1,000 days of diagnosis of hairy leukoplakia with 28 patients who progressed rapidly. The risk factors that proved most predictive fell into two categories: (a) those reflecting sexual practices that correlated with how early in the epidemic patients were likely to have been infected, and (b) those reflecting immune competence. Hepatitis B was associated with a fourfold risk for early progression and syphilis with a nearly threefold risk. Skin test anergy for Candida species was strikingly predictive: all of 17 tested in the early progression group were anergic, compared with only two of 12 tested in the late progression group. Although skin testing has been largely supplanted by assessment of T-cell subsets, Candida species skin testing may be of particular prognostic value in otherwise apparently healthy HIV-infected persons.