[Pathologies in internal medicine: concerning Burkina Faso]

The objective of our study was to determining the epidemiological, diagnosis and evolutionary aspects of pathologies admitted for care in the service of internal medicine between January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2009.

A cross-sectional retrospective and descriptive study was conducted over three years, from the review of medical records of patients admitted to the Department of internal medicine of the Souro Sanou university hospital.

Our study concerned 5362 patients. The average age had been 43.10 years old ±12.2. The sex ratio was 1.16: 1. The majority of our patients were from a low socio-economic background. HIV/AIDS had been the most frequent condition with the rate of admission of 24%, followed by cerebral vascular accidents with 8.6%. The recovery rate was of 53.9% and an overall mortality of 33.3%. This mortality had been dominated by infectious and parasitic diseases including HIV/AIDS with a rate of 27.8% of the overall mortality. Early mortality remains high with a rate of 37.4%.

In spite of the epidemiological transition marked by the emergence of the cardio-metabolic diseases in the countries of the South, infection by HIV always constitutes the main pathology met in the Department of internal medicine of the Souro Sanou university hospital, it is responsible for a high mortality cause of mortality. The emphasis must be placed on early treatment and especially the communication for the change of behavior aiming at an early screening of the HIV. This would allow to reduce effectively the AIDS-related lethality to internal medicine.