Nuclear medicine procedures offer early detection but lack specificity. The long wait for the results also limits its use and the lack of immune response secondary to lower number of T-cells also result in non-specific findings (4). Nuclear medicine has a limited role to play in the diagnosis of infections and tumors in the HIV/AIDS patient as the results do not influence their management. The prognosis is poor for AIDS patients with tumors and treatment is palliative. HIV patients are routinely put on prophylactic antibiotic treatment because PCP and toxoplasmosis are the most common organisms affecting them. Without ongoing antiretroviral drugs the prognosis for all AIDS patients is poor and patients are treated symptomatically.
In the future nuclear medicine may have a role to play in the assessment of the effect of drugs and the delivery of drugs especially in the assessment of the organs affected by disease before and after treatment. There might also be advances in imaging techniques for Kaposi sarcoma to assess the total body tumor load and the assessment of the effect of antiretroviral treatment on the brain (3).
