[Natural history of HIV infection]

There are several questions still unanswered about the infection caused by HIV. Therefore, any account of the disease's natural history should be approached with caution. However, our current knowledge allows us to depict a sequence of situations, starting with the acute infection. After acquisition of infection, patients go through a variable duration silent phase (asymptomatic infection), some of them developing persistent generalized lymphadenopathy. An unknown percentage of both groups will eventually progress toward AIDS (infections final stage). In this paper we dealt with the above topics, following the CDC suggestion, and we try to answer the following questions: Is it possible to eliminate the virus? How many infected patients will evolve towards AIDS? When? Is it feasible an individualized prognosis?