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Arnold Leff, MD
Santa Cruz, Calif

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 al¹ make an interesting case for not doing routine preoperative screening for low-risk populations. This requires that low-risk persons can be adequately separated from high-risk persons by history. One study² indicated that as many as 33% to 50% of individuals believed to carry the virus did not indicate their high-risk status by history alone,³ and there is still a small percentage of patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) who have no identifiable risk factors.

In addition, one must consider the risk to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—positive patient of surgery. Although there is no direct evidence, one could postulate that a person infected with HIV with altered cellular immunity is at increased risk for further degradation of their immune systems by . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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