Periodontal management of HIV-infected patients.

Recognition and diagnosis of the general oral manifestations and specific periodontal manifestations of HIV infection will continue to be a major responsibility of the dental practitioner. The dental team needs to understand the underlying principles of care for the necrotizing and inflammatory periodontal changes associated with HIV. In addition, the practitioner must take into consideration how the presence of opportunistic infections in the periodontium such as Candida as well as the patient's level of immunosuppression may affect conventional approaches to the common forms of periodontal diseases. By combining local and systemic therapy aimed at both preventing and treating oral lesions and periodontal diseases, combined with new systemic antiviral and vaccine therapies, dental and medical practitioners may together help reduce both the dental morbidity and the overall patient morbidity in the HIV infected patient.