Curriculum · Gastroenterology
Candida oesophagitis
What it is
Candida esophagitis is the infectious cause of odynophagia to know first. It causes more than 90 percent of esophagitis in HIV-positive patients, and the other infectious causes named are CMV and HSV.
Causes and risk
The patient is HIV-positive with a low CD4 count, and the table of HIV opportunistic infections by CD4 count separates the two forms of candida by a band. Candida as oral thrush and oral lesions sits in the band that holds Pneumocystis jiroveci, Cryptosporidium and fungal pneumonia. Candidal, HSV or CMV esophagitis is one band lower, with toxoplasmosis. Cytomegalovirus and cryptococcus are lower still, in the <50 band, with Mycobacterium avium complex and primary CNS lymphoma.