Search

Kaposi's Syndrome (K. S.) was defined as a virus induced immunogenic tumour responding to interferon. It can be used as a guideline for therapeutical trials in A. I. D. S. K. S. mortality is 13%. K. S. + O. I. (opportunistic infections) mortality reaches 70% and O. I. mortality is approximately 50%. Therefore treating O. I. is a must but it is not mentioned in the paper. Attempts made to modify immunodepression, usual K. S. treatments, experimental treatments based upon similar pathogenicity (like systemic lupus erythematosus, Hansen's disease, preneoplasia dyskeratosis) were unsuccessful. Trials with alpha recombinant interferon realised at the Sloan Kettering Memorial for Cancer in New York are summarized for 74 patients and are in preliminary interpretation. Our study is based upon 13 cases studied for 14 to 4 months and comes up to the same conclusions using 18 to 36 million units/day for 6 months (6 cases) and 3 to 4 months (7 cases). For 6 full treatments the results are: 2 K. S. were cleaned up after 8 and 3 months follow up, 4 K. S. with O. I.: 3 remissions and then relapses and 1 stabilization, for 7 current treatments: 2 had to be discontinued because of bad tolerance, 1 stabilization and 4 remissions. For all treatments a decrease and a lesser gravity of O. I. can be noted during treatment. Besides flu-like syndromes, main clinical side effects, are: asthenia, general condition impairment, 2 fits were observed for which I.N.F. cannot be clearly incriminated. Daily treatment compelling and surveillance are real drawbacks. Different types of better used interferon will probably yield interesting results (40% regression or improvement).

We report 15 cases of symptomatic HIV infection seen in Paris between June 1983 and June 1985 in Congolese patients. The first signs were diarrhea, weight loss, fever, pruritus. Disseminated lymphadenopathy was frequent. Twelve patients had AIDS, and the opportunistic infections were: isosporosis, oesophageal candidiasis, cerebral toxoplasmosis, Kaposi's sarcoma, CNS' cryptococcosis, cutaneo-mucosal.

This review summarises epidemiological and clinical data of HIV infection who was recognized in Mali since 1985. The most important rate of seropositivity for HIV is observed in the prostitutes group (40%). The estimated seroprevalence for adult population is between 1% and 5%. 46 cases for AIDS are reported in both sexes. The mean age is 35 years. Main signs are weight loss (91%), fever (80%), diarrhea (70%) and lymphadenopathy (50%). Three among the five cases of Kaposi's sarcoma are aggressive. 19.5% of AIDS have antibodies to HIV1, 41.3% to HIV2 and 39.1% to HIV1 and HIV2. Death rate is more than 50%. These data are compared with other countries of Africa.