EPOS

European Paediatric Ophthalmological Society

Abstract Preview

Paediatric AIDS

Teixeira Susana, Santos Maria Jo, Costa e Silva Filomena, Rodrigues Jo, Brito Maria Jo, Neves Concei
¹Hospital Fernando Fonseca - Ophthalmology department, ²Hospital Fernando Fonseca - Paediatric department

Purpose:To describe ocular manifestations of HIV/AIDS infection found in the paediatric population of Hospital Fernando Fonseca. Methods:Ophthalmologic observation was performed in fourteen HIV infected patients, aged 8 years old or younger, in a universe of 200 children referred to the Paediatric Immunodeficiency Clinics between 1998 and 2001. Results:Ten of the HIV infected children had AIDS and four were assymptomatic. Three of these children had evidence of poor lacrimal secretion and two of them in terminal stage had excessively large eyelashes. We describe in detail a case of a baby with AIDS encephalopathy who also had a challenge diagnostic retinopathy. Conclusion:Although ophthalmologic manifestations of HIV/AIDS infection are considered rare in children, we found a significant number of them in our population. For that reason and also because children are a risk group as they often do not complain of visual impairment, we believe that periodical ophthalmologic observations should be performed in children with HIV/AIDS infection.