HIV/AIDS classification: CDC classification (CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Category |
Clinical stages |
Symptoms/diseases |
A |
Acute HIV infection |
- Asymptomatic HIV infection
- Acute, symptomatic (primary) HIV infection/acute HIV syndrome (also in the history): mononucleosis-like clinical picture with short-term lymphadenopathy (swelling of the lymph nodes), fever and splenomegaly (spleen enlargement)
- Persistent generalized lymphadenopathy (LAS) > 3 months, no general symptoms.
- Latent phase: clinically healthy but infectious (duration: on average about 10 years, depending on immune status nutritional status and age).
|
B |
Symptomatic HIV infection |
Non-AIDS defining symptoms and illnesses:
- Constitutional symptoms such as.
- HIV-associated neuropathy (diseases of the peripheral nervous system).
- Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (IPT).
- Opportunistic infections:
- Bacillary angiomatosis
- Herpes zoster when multiple dermatomes are affected (area of skin autonomously supplied by the sensory fibers of a spinal nerve root/spinal cord root) or after recurrence (recurrence of disease) in one dermatome
- Listeriosis
- Oral hairy leukoplakia
- Oropharyngeal Candida infection (in the mouth and throat area).
- Pelvic inflammatory disease, especially with complications of tubal or ovarian abscess.
- Vulvovaginal candida infections that are either chronic (> 1 month) or poorly treatable
- Cervical dysplasia or carcinoma in situ.
|
C |
AIDS |
AIDS-defining diseases:
- Wasting syndrome: unintentional weight loss of >10% of original body weight over a 6-month period with concomitant chronic diarrhea (diarrhea) without evidence of pathogens and/or fever
- HIV-associated encephalopathy: HIV dementia.
- Opportunistic infections
- Systemic candidiasis (esophageal Candida infection or infestation of bronchi, trachea or lungs).
- Chronic herpes simplex ulcers or herpes bronchitis, pneumonia, or esophagitis.
- HSV encephalitis
- CMV retinitis
- Generalized CMV infection (not of liver or spleen).
- Recurrent salmonella septicemia.
- Recurrent pneumonias within one year
- Pneumocystitis jiroveci pneumonia
- Crytococcosis (pulmonary or extrapulmonary).
- Chronic intestinal cryptosporidial infection.
- Chronic intestinal infection with Isospora belli
- Histoplasmosis (extrapulmonary or disseminated).
- Tuberculosis
- Infections with Mycobacterium avium complex or M. kansasii, disseminated or extrapulmonary.
- Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy.
- Cerebral toxoplasmosis (Toxoplasma encephalitis).
- Visceral leishmaniasis (inclusion as an AIDS-associated infection is discussed).
- Malignancies:
- Kaposi’s sarcoma
- Malignant lymphoma (Burkitt’s, immunoblastic, or primary cerebral lymphoma)
- Invasive cervical carcinoma
- Hodgkin’s lymphoma and anal carcinoma (inclusion as AIDS-defining due to increased relative incidence is debated).
|
Depending on the T helper cell count (CD4 lymphocytes), the stages are further subdivided:
CD4 lymphocytes |
Stages |
> 500/µl |
A1 B1 C1 |
200-499/µl |
A2 B2 C2 |
< 200/µl |
A3 B3 C3 |