[Serological diagnosis of syphilis in Cuban HIV/AIDS patients]

The non-treponemic fast detection test of plasmatic reagines (RPR) and the treponemic hemagglutination test of Treponema pallidum were used in the detection of infection due to T. pallidum in 60 males presenting HIV/AIDS infection with clinicoepidemiological diagnosis of syphilis. It was confirmed that 30% presented recently acquired symptomatic or latent syphilis and that 10% had markers of past treated infection or of late acquired latent syphilis, whereas in the other 60% no serological reactivity was detected. A seroprevalence study of reaginic antibodies was conducted by RPR in 59 HIV/AIDS females, using 67 women negative to this virus as controls. All of them had no symptoms compatible with the syphilitic infection. It was concluded that 20.3% and 11.9%, respectively, presented reactivity, which established a probable diagnosis of syphilis or a seroresistance to a previouos syphilis. These results showed a close association between syphilis and HIV/AIDS and that both diseases may coexist in a same patient.