Clinical characteristics of 32 HIV-1 infected patients investigated for small bowel bacterial overgrowth
| Clinical feature | Diarrhoea (n=21) | No diarrhoea (n=11) |
| Risk group | ||
| Homosexual | 19 (90) | 9 (82) |
| Heterosexual | 2 (10) | 1 (9) |
| Intravenous drug use | 0 | 1 (9) |
| Prior opportunistic infection | 12 (57) | 5 (45) |
| Antiretroviral therapy | 17 (81) | 7 (64) |
| Duration of diarrhoea (mean no of weeks) | 15 | NA |
| Number of stools/day (mean) | 9 | NA |
| Indications for endoscopy | ||
| Diarrhoea | 21 (100) | 0 |
| Oesophageal symptoms | 0 | 7 (64) |
| Epigastric pain | 0 | 2 (18) |
| Staging of Kaposi’s sarcoma | 0 | 2 (18) |
| Pneumocystis carinii prophylaxis | ||
| Trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole | 12 (57) | 9 (82) |
| Dapsone | 6 (29) | 0 |
| Azithromycin | 3 (14) | 0 |
| CD4 lymphocyte count, median (range) | 20 (2–828) | 50 (1–353) |
Values in parentheses are percentages except where otherwise indicated.
NA, not applicable.