A client is diagnosed with a dysfunctional syncytia. what assessment finding supports this diagnosis?

Dysfunctional syncytia refer to dysfunctional multicellular clumps produced due to the cell to cell fusion. The cells infected with HIV also may merge with the closer uninfected cells, producing balloon-like giant cells known as syncytia.

The existence of the syncytia-stimulating variants of HIV has been associated with the rapid disease progression in the HIV-infected people. The diagnosis of the condition is done by noticing the formation of multi-nucleate enlarged cells.

This is formed by the amalgamation of the infected cells with the adjacent cells resulting in the formation of multi-nucleate enlarged cells.