Objective: To elucidate general characteristics of HIV/AIDS patients seeking care at Ditan Hospital in an attempt to guide early diagnosis in routine medical care. Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis of 185 HIV/AIDS cases from January 1990 to June 2002 was completed using SPSS statistical analysis. Results: Male to female ratio was 1.8 :1. Subjects ranged in age from 1 year old to 64 years old. 16 cases were younger than 20 years old with the median age among the younger subset at 7.7 years. 169 cases were older than 20 years old with a median age of 36 years old. 29% of the subjects were peasants. The remaining 71%, were of other unspecified occupations. 90.8% of individuals were of Han descent while 3.7% of individuals were of a minority heritage. 50.3% of subjects were married; 23.8% have never married; 8.1% were divorced; and the remaining 17.8% were of unknown marital status. Of those represented in this study, 36.8% came from the Henan province; 17.8% were from Beijing; 8.6% were from Shanxi; 31.4% from the other 20 provinces of China; and 5.4% from outside of China. Mode of transmission: 40.0% (74/185) contracted HIV through unprotected sexual contact; 29.2% (54/185) through receiving blood or plasma transfusions; 21.1%(39/185) through donating plasma; 7 cases were intravenous drug users; 7 cases were vertically transmitted. Mode of transmission was unknown in 4 cases. Clinical categories: An included 45 cases; B included 85 cases: C consisted of 76 cases. 12 cases were deceased. Initial presentation: 39 cases presented with fever ,cough and diarrhea. 37 cases had fever and cough only. 38 cases presented with chronic diarrhea. 16 cases were discovered incidentally at time of operation. 8 cases presented with fungal infection of the oral cavity or in esophagus. The common HIV associated symptoms and opportunistic infections were: weight loss and diarrhea, respiratory diseases, der-matologic diseases, anemia , neutropenia. Diseases of other organ systems were less common. Common misdiagnoses incl
