[Buccal manifestations of AIDS]

The disease determined by HIV, increasingly more frequent, is affecting certain groups of patients (homosexuals, drug addicts, polytransfused subjects). The clinical picture at the onset is not specific. Later on in the course of the disease the immunological capacity of defense of the organism is affected and a series of symptoms including fever, infections with bacteria, lymph-node inflammation, encephalopathies, Kaposi sarcoma will develop. Apparently buccal infections with fungi are the earliest manifestations, and they are followed, by order of frequency, by herpetic lesions, "hairy" leucoplasia, tumours. Transmission through the saliva from the patient to the stomatologist of the HIV infection is theoretically possible due to scratches on the physicians' hands. Prophylactic measures are described for the stomatologists treating AIDS patients, as well as for the sterilization of the instruments.