Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.I have a friend who has been HIV positive for 14 years. He is doing well on Indinavir & Lamavudine. He is also hepatitis C positive, but not presently sick. Recently he was diagnosed with an umbilical hernia. The doctor has spoken to him about having surgery to take care of it. Can you tell me what possible complications or problems he might face if he doesn't have the surgery, & whether it could affect his HIV status?
Dear Reader,
There should be no concern about having the unbilical hernia repair. HIV/Hepatitis patients have surgeries all the time, whether elective like cosmetic surgery or required like appendectomies. As long as the immune system is in good shape, i.e. T-cells over 200 then everything should go just fine. In fact we often have to do surgeries on patients with very low T-cells and they generally do OK.
A major study compared 300 HIV-positive patients requiring surgery with an equal number who were HIV-negative but had the same surgery in the same time period at the same medical center--there was NO difference in hospital length of stay, complications, mortality, or any other parameter looked at!
This should not affect T-cell counts or viral control.
Likewise the liver should be fine with anesthesia. Just make sure the anesthesiologist knows that the patient is hepatitis C positive so appropriate choice of anesthesia agents can be made.
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