Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 05 May 2002
Prega Govender
A ground-breaking study by Professor Runjan Chetty, head of pathology at the Nelson R Mandela Medical School at the University of Natal in Durban, and his colleague, Dr Raj Nair, a vascular surgeon who is now based in Britain, has found that one of the early signs of HIV in young patients is the presence of swellings of the arteries in the neck, abdomen and legs.
Chetty, who presented the findings at a medical conference in Canada last weekend, said the discovery of the swellings, medically termed aneurysms, was an entirely new development in the manifestation of the deadly disease.
The study, which started in 1996 and which involved a target group of 16 HIV-positive people between the ages of 18 and 38, found that all of them had developed aneurysms. Since then he has discovered a further 25 HIV-positive patients with the same condition.
Dr Nelson Moodley, a surgeon attached to the Nelson R Mandela Medical School but who is based at King Edward Hospital, said he would be further investigating Chetty's findings. He said the objective was to find out why this disease occurred and if it could be prevented from occurring.
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