Abstract
In our country, the mortality of HIV patients is improved because of the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy, although the morbidity of HIV infection increases year by year. Therefore, it is no wonder that the number of HIV patients requiring dental treatment will increase. In order to recognize the actual situation of their dental treatment, we studied the HIV patients treated in Department of Oral and Maxillo-Facial Surgery, University Hospital, Kumamoto University School of Medicine during the past three years (2000-2002). Dental treatments were provided to 23 (40%) of 60 HIV-infected patients enrolled in Center for AIDS Research, Kumamoto University.
Among 23 cases, on the first visit, 11 cases showed more than 600/ul of CD4 cells, and 2 cases were immunocompromised patients with 100/ul or less of CD4 cells. As for HIV virus level, 7 cases with less than 50 copies/ul viruses, 13 cases with 50 to 10, 000 copies/ul and 3 cases with more than 10, 000 copies/ul were included. The chief complaints of the patients consisted of 6 cases of pain, 5 cases of swelling, 5 cases of dental caries, 3 cases of prosthetic need, 3 cases of dental care and a cases of hematoma. We experienced 266 opportunities for 23 patients during 3 years and under took 53 times of scaling and 18 times of wisdom tooth extraction. No postoperative infection was seen without prophylactic antibiotics.
