Assessment of the person with AIDS in the emergency department

It is difficult to describe a "typical" clinical picture of a person with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) who is seen in the emergency department. The clinical course and the early clinical manifestations that lead to the initial diagnosis of AIDS vary greatly. Variability is the rule, because the patient with AIDS may manifest a wide range of signs and symptoms--from those associated with a minor illness to those indicative of a critical near-death state. Indeed, some patients with AIDS have no complaints or relatively minor constitutional complaints before becoming acutely compromised as a result of an overwhelming opportunistic infection. Other patients have a relatively short history (weeks to months) of vague, nonspecific complaints.