Important note: Information in this article was accurate in August 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, August 28, 2000
Prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports
NewsRx -- Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) reduces the risk of cardiac complications in HIV patients, a new study shows.
"Cardiac involvement is frequently observed in HIV infected patients, especially in those in the late stage of the disease," stated A. Pugliese and colleagues, Reg Hospital, Italy.
They discussed their study on the impact of HAART in such patients in the Journal of Infection ("Impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy in HIV positive patients with cardiac involvement," J Infect 2000 May;40(3):282-4.
The researchers conducted a retrospective study of 1,042 patients. All of the patients were admitted to a Division of Infectious Diseases hospital between 1989 and 1998. During the time period between 1989-1995, 544 of the HIV infected patients were treated with nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI). During the time period 1996-1998, 498 patients were treated with HAART.
"Cardiac involvement, including arrhythmias, pericarditis, ischaemia, dilated cardiomyopathy, endocarditis, pulmonary hypertension, and myocarditis were observed in 282 of 544 (51.8%) patients treated with NRTI, compared with 93 of 498 (18.6%) patients with HAART (P<0.0001)," Pugliese et al. reported.
"HAART has significantly decreased the incidence of cardiac involvement, especially pericarditis, arrhythmias, and dilated cardiomyopathy."
The corresponding author for this report is D. Torre, Reg Hospital, Division of Infectious Diseases, Viale Borri 57, I-21100 Varese, Italy.
Key points reported in this study are:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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