The profiles of HIV/AIDS patients with DVT

Many aspects of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome [AIDS] have been described in detail in the literature. However, there has been very few articles on the phenomenon of Deep Vein Thrombosis [DVT] in the lower extremities of human immunodeficiency virus [HIV/AIDS] infected patients. There is reason to believe that the number of patients being admitted with Deep Vein Thrombosis in our hospital recently has increased compared with past records. Many patients have also been admitted with pulmonary embolism some of which were actually diagnosed at autopsy. Of note is that most of these patients admitted either with DVT or thrombosis at other sites are also infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Although some of them have other risk factors for thrombosis like obesity, infections (e.g. Tuberculosis) etc, the relationship between thrombosis and HIV infection has been documented by many researchers. It has been found that HIV infection predisposes to a hypercoagulable state and that the risk of venous thromboembolism is about 10times that expected among people without HIV. In addition, various abnormalities leading to a hypercoagulable state have been detected in HIV patients