[Prevalence of HIV antibody carriers in patients assisted in the recovery room].

A study has been performed on 200 patients at the Recovery Department of our hospital during 1987. This study was carried out in order to determine patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody. This group was randomized and consisted of 154 men and 46 women, with an average age of 35.6 +/- 3.9, a total weight of 68 +/- 6 kg and a height of 1.69 +/- 0.2 m. The day entered at the Recovery Department we assessed the following parameters: a) addiction to drugs by parenteral way; b) bleeding; c) invasive procedures; d) etiology, and e) blood samples were drawn for plasma antibody to HIV. We detected five patients (2.5%) with antibody anti-HIV and all of these patients were male and they were aged in 20-39 years old. We noticed a close relation between addiction to drugs and HIV (p less than 0.001), nevertheless no relation has been found between invasive procedures, bleeding, etiology and antibody to HIV. We conclude that the number of patients that we detected with antibody from the HIV is similar to those found by other studies that has been carried out in emergency situation, but greater than those found in the screening of the general population.