An unusual cause of abdominal pain in an HIV-positive man

Abstract

We report a case of an HIV-positive man on antiretroviral therapy (ART) who developed abdominal pain due to acute-on-chronic intestinal ischaemia secondary to superior mesenteric vein thrombosis (SMVT) requiring emergency surgery. He was found to have persistently low levels of protein C on thrombophilia screening. To the best of our knowledge, the association linking SMVT to protein C deficiency in an HIV-infected patient has never been reported in the literature.