Karnofsky performance status and assessment of global health status.

To the Editor: The article by O'Dell et al. (1) that appeared in a recent issue of this journal highlights the validity of the Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) in reflecting global health status in HIVinfected people. Even though this can be true for AIDS patients, we think that KPS might be an inadequate measure in less advanced patients such as those with HIV infection and without an AIDS-indicator disease. To verify this hypothesis, we studied KPS in a sample of patients with HIV infection belonging to CDC groups A and B .