Usefulness of computerized electroencephalography in diagnosing, staging and monitoring AIDS-dementia complex

One hundred and one subjects, with various degrees of HIV infection, were enrolled in a longitudinal study aimed at evaluating the correlation between clinical and instrumental findings in the development of HIV-related subacute encephalitis. The method used was electroencephalography coupled with computerized spectral analysis (EEG-CSA) and mapping. The findings recorded by this method were compared with those obtained by computed tomography (CT) scan and neurological examination. The EEG-CSA findings were divided into four categories according to their severity. EEG-CSA was shown to be very sensitive in detecting the first signs of a forthcoming neurological disease. Following 11 months of observation, 22 out of 40 (55%) neurologically asymptomatic individuals who, at the beginning of the study showed some EEG-CSA abnormalities, had clinical evidence of a subacute encephalitis whereas only two out of 37 (5.4%) subjects who were previously free of EEG-CSA abnormalities had some signs of neurological disease (P <0.001) after the same period. Of those remaining who were already symptomatic when the study started, the neurological progression of HIV infection was also monitored by EEG-CSA.