NEUROLOGICAL COMPLICATIONS OF HIV INFECTION, EPILEPTIC SEIZURES AND RISK OF DEATH

Abstract

Objectives: The study highlights the importance of epileptic seizures in HIV-positive patients with neurological complications, as well as the main neurological disorders that the seizures occurred in. The risk of death associated with seizure onset and the risk of death of the neurological conditions that the seizures arose from was calculated. Methods: 166 HIV-positive patients with neurological disorders admitted to the Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital of Constanta between June 2012 and June 2020, were enrolled in an analytical, observational, and retrospective study. The data were extracted from the observation and follow-up sheets of these patients, which presented with neurological manifestations such as epileptic seizures. The data were processed using the IBM SPSS statistics 23 software. Results: Epileptic seizures were described in 47 patients (28,3%) and have been associated more with Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML) and CNS Toxoplasmosis (CT) and less with HIV associated dementia (HAD) (p < 0,05). Extrapolating, the association of seizures with opportunistic infections versus other neurological complications was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The risk of death was 6 times higher for the patients diagnosed with opportunistic infections than for those suffering from other neurological conditions. In general, the risk of death associated with epileptic seizures in HIV positive patients was 3 times higher, compared to the risk of death in patients without epileptic seizures. Conclusions: The presence of epileptic seizures should accelerate the rhythm of the investigations being conducted; in order to establish the etiological diagnosis and decrease the morbidity and mortality of HIV-infected patients with neurological complications.