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Lawrence D. Jones, MD
First Colony Life Insurance Company Lynchburg, Va

JAMA. 1988;260(2):180.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Hagen et al,¹ in a recent article in JAMA, give a variety of reasons why they consider testing for human immunodeficiency virus on presurgical patients unnecessary in terms of risk to operating surgeons. This issue has been, and will continue to be, debated. However, there is another aspect to the evaluation of the preoperative patient. That has to do with potential complications found in the patient subseqent to surgery. If indeed an individual tests positive for human immunodeficiency virus, the stress caused by the surgery may well speed up the manifestations of the infection and the ultimate disease process.

Before operating on a person I would like to know what complications I am most likely to deal with in the postoperative patient. For the patient with human immunodeficiency virus—positive blood, it is entirely possible that it will be necessary to deal with the complications caused by . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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