Human immunodeficiency virus and acute fulminant infection.

Abstract The complications of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection can result in life-threatening dysfunction requiring support in the intensive careunit (ICU). HIV is frequently overlooked as part of the differential diagnosis in those presenting with acute life-threatening infection. Consideration of the possibility of HIV infection and its related disorders, even in areaswhere HIV is thought uncommon, is increasingly important. Failure to do so may result in a fatal outcome or a more complicated course of illness, as well as inadvertently denying those patients that survive access to new treatments.