[Neurologic complications of AIDS. Panoramic view based on a multicenter hospital study]

Data concerning 292 neurologic complications of AIDS were supplied by ten Departments of Neurology of Spanish hospitals. The period of study was from june 1984 to june 1988. The most frequent complications were: Toxoplasmosis of the CNS (28%), subacute encephalopathy (17%), distal polyneuropathy (8%), tuberculous meningitis (7.5%) and cryptococcal infection of the CNS (6.5%). The most important risk factors for AIDS in this series were intravenous drug addiction (77%) and homosexuality in males (12%). The overall mortality among the reported complications was 54.7%. The main causes of mortality were toxoplasmosis (32% of the fatalities), subacute encephalopathy (19%), and progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (8%). These data are compared to those obtained from other European and American series.