Abstract 36

We studied the endocrine function of 14 patients with HIV (+) (9 girls) 4.6 ± 3.5 years of age (range 11 months to 14 years), whose diagnosis was performed at the age of 2.5 ± 0.2 years. according to international criteria. Vertical transmission of HIV was documented in 12 patients. The stage of the disease according to the CDC was 6 patients without immunosuppression, 5 with moderate immunosuppression and 3 with severe immunosuppression at the time of this study. We performed an evaluation which included physical examination, anthropometric evaluation, general laboratory tests (serum hemoglobin, carotene, albumin and hepatic enzymes) and hormonal tests (free T4, TSH, morning cortisol, IGF-1, IGFBP-3 and GHBP). Results are shown in the table (mean ± SEM).

Table 1 No caption available.
Full size table

Most of our patients showed mild deterioration in height, weight and BMI. We detected 3 patients with compensated thyroid failure and 5 patients with low morning cortisol who required hormonal therapy. In addition, we found 2 patients with low IGF-I and IGFBP-3 with normal BMI, and a height Z score of - 0.5. These endocrine abnormalities were not related with the stage of their disease. These findings suggest that endocrine dysfunctyon is observed in an important number of HIV (+) children. Therefore, these children should be evaluated at regular intervals in order to institute hormonal therapy when appropriate