Table of Contents
- Overview
- Symptoms
- Treatment
- Prevention
- Images
HIV infection - asymptomatic
Symptoms
Asymptomatic HIV infection, by definition, does NOT have symptoms typically associated with HIV, such as:
- Fever
- Opportunistic infections (opportunistic means they occur because the weakened immune system provides the "opportunity" for infections to take hold. Serious opportunistic infections include
Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia , cytomegalovirus, and Mycobacterium avium). -
Oral thrush (also an opportunistic infection, but not life-threatening and does not require a seriously weakened immune system to occur) - Weight loss
Signs and tests
The diagnosis of HIV infection is based on standard blood tests such as the
How well an HIV-infected person's immune system is functioning can be determined by measuring the level of certain white blood cells called CD4 lymphocytes (also known as helper T lymphocytes).
Images
Previous Section
Review Date: 12/01/2009
Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of
General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington
School of Medicine; Jatin M. Vyas, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor in
Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Assistant in Medicine, Division
of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts
General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical
Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)
