Future Science Group has announced the publication of an article in Future Virology highlighting the clinical complications associated with antiretroviral therapy in Chinese HIV/ Tuberculosis (TB) coinfected patients.
In HIV infected individuals, coinfection with TB advances HIV to AIDS. As per the recommended guidelines by the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, it is advised that these patients receive anti-tubercular treatment followed by timely initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy.
"Despite the availability of the National Free Antiretroviral Treatment Program in China, HIV-related opportunistic infections continue to cause mortality in Chinese HIV-infected individuals due to lack of awareness of HIV infection until opportunistic infections become the first indicator of their disease" explained the authors (Huarun-WISCO Hospital and Beijing Shijitan Hospital, China).
In this investigation, the authors set to identify the aetiology of clinical complications associated with this coinfection by retrospectively studying 180 HIV-infected patients admitted to the Beijing Ditan Hospital from January 2012 to April 2014. Amongst the most frequent complications were AIDS-defining illnesses with a prevalence of 20%.
There are hopes that these findings will help educate physicians treating patients with HIV/ Tuberculosis especially after initiating combination antiretroviral therapy.
Commissioning Editor for Future Virology, Frances Adlam commented: "This study addresses the important clinical problem of continued high mortality in HIV/TB coinfected patients and contains data especially applicable to resource limited settings."
Article: Clinical complications of antiretroviral therapy in HIV/TB patients in referral hospital, China, Ziyuan Li, Shuxu Du, Zhengyun Xiao & Jiang Xiao, Future Virology, doi: 10.2217/fvl-2016-0102, published February 2017.