Prevalence of oral soft tissue lesions in HIV-infected minority children treated with highly active antiretroviral therapies.

PURPOSE: This project studied the prevalence of oral soft tissue disease in HIV-infected children treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

METHODS

Thirty-eight HIV-infected children participated in the study. Twenty-three of these patients were treated with HAART while 14 received exclusively reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTI) and served as controls. The children were examined three times at approximately one-month intervals while their health history and laboratory data were abstracted from medical charts. Analyses were performed to determine differences in lesion prevalence between treatment groups as well as between lesion and no lesion groups with regard to immune differences.

RESULTS

Thirty patients (79%) had oral lesions detected in at least one visit. There were no differences in specific lesion prevalence between HAART compared with RTI-treated children. However, a trend for more oral candidiasis in the latter group was observed. Subjects with oral soft tissue lesions had lower CD4 counts (P = 0.04) and percentage (P = 0.01) but similar viral loads when compared to patients without oral soft tissue disease.

CONCLUSIONS

HAART does not appear to significantly affect oral soft tissue disease prevalence in HIV-infected children. Presence of lesions was associated with decreased immunity and may signal advancing disease.