Clinical features of inflammatory dermatoses in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 disease and their correlation with Walter Reed stage. Military Medical Consortium for Applied Retroviral Research.

Abstract

As part of a military study of the natural history of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) disease, all patients entered in the study were examined for cutaneous changes associated with HIV-1 infection. Our purpose was to characterize and record the types of inflammatory dermatoses in a large number of HIV-1-infected patients to determine whether there was a correlation with the stage of disease. The clinical findings in each case were compared with the results of cultures and biopsy specimens and correlated with Walter Reed stage. Most of the inflammatory dermatoses were maculopapular eruptions often with prominent follicular involvement, and in some there was a lichenoid component. With increasing Walter Reed stage, many eruptions become papulosquamous, some with psoriasiform scale and some with a hypertrophic lichenoid appearance. Although most of the inflammatory eruptions were nonspecific clinically, most cases showed features resembling those in graft-versus-host disease.