[HIV enteropathy]

HIV enteropathy is defined, according to authors, by intestinal histological anomalies presumed to be induced by HIV and/or the chronic diarrhea of AIDS progressing in the absence of any detectable intestinal infectious pathogen. HIV can certainly infect the mononuclear cells of the chorion of the intestinal mucosa, and probably certain colonocytes. The links between infection of these cells and HIV enteropathy remain very poorly understood. Certain authors attribute a preponderant role to possible abnormalities of enterocyte renewal induced by HIV, and others to intestinal mucosal inflammation induced by the infection and activation of lymphocytes of the mucosal chorion. Multifactorial, anatomical and functional, involvement of the mucosal barrier of the entire intestine is no doubt closest to the truth.