A retrospective study of central nervous system (CNS) in 284 autopsy AIDS cases in Brazil (1989–2008) divided into 3 groups: A (without antiretroviral treatment: 163 cases); B (other antiretroviral therapies: 76 cases); C (HAART for 3 months or more: 45 cases). In 165 (58.1%) cases, relevant lesions were found, predominantly infections (54.2%); the most frequent was toxoplasmosis (29.9%) followed by cryptococcosis (15.8%), purulent bacterial infections (3.9%), and HIV encephalitis (2.8%); non-Hodgkin lymphomas occurred in 1.4% and vascular lesions in 1.1%. There was no difference when compared the frequency of lesion among the groups; however, toxoplasmosis was less common while HIV encephalitis was more frequent in group C related to A. CNS lesions remain a frequent cause of death in AIDS; however, the mean survival time was four times greater in group C than in A. In 91 (55.1%) of 165 cases with relevant brain lesions (or 32% of the total 284 cases), there was discordance between pre- and postmortem diagnosis; disagreement type 1 (important disease that if diagnosed in life could change the patient prognosis) occurred in 49 (53.8%) of 91 discordant cases (17.6% of the total 284) indicating the autopsy importance, even with HAART and advanced diagnostics technologies.

This report describes a 32-year-old male AIDS patient. He presented with a clinical picture characterized by severe headache, blurred vision, and fever that had lasted for 10 days. At admission, no remarkable neurologic abnormalities were observed. Cranial tomography showed a ring-enhanced lesion with edema and a mass effect in the right occipital lobe. The initial diagnosis was toxoplasmosis, and treatment of this was administered. However, 5 days later, the patient's clinical status worsened and he died. The necropsy showed necrotizing and hemorrhagic encephalitis, with trophozoites similar to an amoeba species. Furthermore, the kidneys, adrenal glands, thyroid gland, and liver were also involved. The amoeba Balamuthia mandrillaris was identified by an immunofluorescence test.

SUMMARYInvolvement of the digestive system in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is frequent and many changes in these patients are diagnosed only at autopsy. There are few studies of autopsy with detailed analysis of this system and only one was conducted in Brazil. We evaluated each segment of the digestive system in 93 consecutive autopsies of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the importance of these lesions to death. Of these, 90 (96.8%) patients had AIDS. We reviewed medical records, autopsy reports and histological sections from tongue to rectum stained with hematoxylin-eosin. When necessary, we analyzed special stains and immunohistochemistry to investigate infections. There was damage to the digestive system in 73 (78.5%) cases. The most common infections were candidiasis (42%), cytomegalovirus (29%), histoplasmosis (11.8%), toxoplasmosis (9.7%) and mycobacterial infection (9.7%). Malignancies were rare, present in four (4.3%) cases (two Kaposi's sarcoma, one adenocarcinoma and one metastatic embryonal carcinoma). All segments showed lesions: tongue (48.6%), esophagus (44.8%), stomach (44.7%), colon (43.2%) and small intestine (28.9%). The lesions found were immediate cause of death in five (5.4%) cases. In another 36 (38.7%) cases the basic disease was systemic and also compromised the digestive system.