[Ocular manifestations associated to CD4+ in patients with human immunodeficiency virus]

Since the first cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), ocular manifestations secondary to infection have been known and these have been related to the CD4+ lymphocyte count.

To describe the correlation between ocular manifestations in patients with HIV and the CD4+ lymphocyte count.

Analytical cross-sectional study of patients with HIV whose CD4+ count was correlated with the presence of ophthalmological manifestations.

21 patients between 26 and 67 years were studied. Only 3 patients were not on antiretroviral therapy. 67% of the patients presented some type of ocular manifestation, 42% presented non-infection related manifestations, 47% related manifestations and 24% both. Conjunctival microangiopathy was the most frequent ocular manifestation (35.7%). There was a statistically significant correlation (r = 0.76, p = 0.0001) between eye manifestations related to infection and CD4+ lymphocyte count.

Patients with HIV frequently present ocular manifestations, the majority related to infection; there is a correlation between the presence of these with the CD4+ count. However, a similar number of manifestations not related to infection occurred without correlation with the count; therefore, HIV patients should have periodic ophthalmological examinations, independently of CD4+ count.