Top

HIV Life Expectancy

October 12, 2011 by · Comments Off on HIV Life Expectancy 

HIV Life ExpectancyHIV Life Expectancy, Thanks to earlier diagnosis and improvements in antiretroviral therapy, the life expectancy of people receiving treatment for HIV infection has increased more than 15 years in the United Kingdom since the mid 90’s, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal yesterday.

However, an accompanying editorial says that the survival figures, which are about 13 years younger than the population of the United Kingdom as a whole, are still not good enough.

Academics from the University of Bristol and University College London (UCL), led the Medical Research Council (MRC) funded research.

The researchers used data from the cohort of the UK Collaborative HIV (UK CHIC) study of more than 17,500 patients who started antiretroviral therapy between 1996 and 2008 in HIV clinics throughout the United Kingdom and its life expectancy compared with that of the UK population.

The lead author, Dr. Margaret Mayo, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Social Medicine Bristol and Community Health, told reporters his results “strongly support” the idea of ??more widespread testing for HIV.

Before this, few studies have looked at how long people with HIV in the UK were likely to live.

For their calculations, May and colleagues estimated the number of additional years after the age of 20 years an HIV-positive people in the UK is likely to live.

Patients included had to CD4 cell counts of 350 cells/mm3 up when they started their antiretroviral therapy.

They found that:
Of the 17,661 patients eligible for inclusion in the analysis, 1,248 died during follow up, covering the equivalent of 91,203 years person.

For male and female patients in general, life expectancy at age 20 increased from 30.0 (standard error SE, 1.2) to 45.8 years (SD 1.7), 1996-99 to 2006-08.

There was a marked difference between women and men, a much wider gap than in the general population.

For male patients the highest life expectancy was only 39.5 (0.45) years while that for women was 50.2 (0.45) years.

This compares with a life expectancy 20 years of age of 57.8 and 61.6 years respectively, in the general population during the same period (1996-2008).

Start by antiretroviral therapy guidelines suggest, resulted in up to 15 years lower life expectancy.

For patients that began when their CD4 count was 200 to 350, life expectancy was 53.4 (SE 1.2) years for patients with 100-199 CD4 count was 41.0 (2.2), and for patients with CD4 counts below 100, which was 37.9 (1.3).
The researchers concluded that:

“Our research has found the life expectancy of people with HIV has improved significantly in the UK. We expect further improvements for patients starting antiretroviral therapy with improvement of modern medicines and the new guidelines recommend early treatment.”

Also note that it is necessary to identify HIV-positive people early, before their CD4 levels get too low, “to avoid the negative impact this has very large.”

Survival rates for HIV have improved so that, compared with the general population, the risk of death in HIV patients treated successfully is almost the same as the people who live unhealthy lifestyles ( for example, heavy smokers, heavy users of alcohol and obese people) or who have chronic illnesses like diabetes.

Co-author Dr Mark Gompels, a primary care physician in North Bristol NHS Trust, said:

“These results are very reassuring news for patients today and will be used to advise the newly found to be HIV-positive.”

May said:

“It is also clear benefits for patients with the forecast made in terms of life expectancy and this could have a significant impact on the recruitment of patients for the test.”

There are about 80,000 people infected with HIV in the UK, and is estimated to be approximately 1 in 4 do not realize.

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) attacks the immune system, weakening your natural defenses against disease and increases the risk of developing a serious infection or illness such as cancer.

CD4 cells invades living in the infection of the blood and struggle. Once the virus enters the cell, which is set to destroy it, using the resources of the fuel cell of its own replication. Although the body tries to compensate produce more cells, the virus will eventually overcome this, and the immune system gets stuck. By stopping the replication of HIV, antiretroviral help increase CD4 cells, thus restoring the immune system.

Bottom