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Canadian Medical Association Journal logoLink to Canadian Medical Association Journal
. 1985 Aug 15;133(4):293.

Limited usefulness of lymphocytopenia in screening for AIDS in hospital patients.

W J Boyko, M T Schechter, P Constance, R Nitz
PMCID: PMC1345978  PMID: 4016638

Abstract

Lymphocytopenia is often present in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and has been suggested as a useful screening test for AIDS. Of 625 patients consecutively admitted to an acute care university teaching hospital 91 (15%) were found to have a lymphocyte count of less than 1 X 10(9)/L, and 25 (4%) had a count of less than 0.5 X 10(9)/L. The corresponding figures for 32 patients at the hospital in whom AIDS had been diagnosed were 13 (41%) and 4 (13%). Absolute lymphocyte counts in hospitalized patients should not be used as the sole means of identifying patients at high risk for AIDS.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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