Question
What is the prognosis if diagnosed with these symptoms?
19 January 2010. Related: All topics, Opportunistic infections, Starting treatment.
What is the prognosis for someone who is diagnosed at a stage where they are presenting with severe throat infections, weight loss and fatigue?
Answer
Hi
Thanks for your question.
Prognosis is the medical term to refer the the expected outcome for any individual depending on their current health and diagnosis.
With HIV, this is mainly related to a persons CD4 count: the higher the count the better, with counts below 350, 200 and 50 becoming increasingly more serious and life threatening.
However, even someone diagnosed with a very low CD4 count (ie under 50 cells/mm3) can expect a good response from treatment and can turn this into a good prognosis.
Throat symptoms can be relatively easy-to-treat early symptoms but weight loss and fatigue can often mean that the CD4 count has already dropped below 200. Either way,
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