Antiretroviral therapy reduces the rate of sexual transmission of HIV-1 from man to woman. The Italian Partner Study.
Int Conf AIDS 1992 Jul 19-24; 8:We61 (abstract no. WeC 1088) Massimo M, Angarano G, Saracco A, Nicolosi A, Gasparini M, Arici C, Ricchi E, Lazzarin A;
OBJECTIVE. To evaluate the influence of antiretroviral therapy on the infectiousness of infected partners in stable couples discordant for HIV. METHODS. Multicenter prospective study of 396 seronegative, non drug using, female steady partner of HIV infected men. RESULTS. There were 27 seroconversions in a total of 649.1 person-years (PY) providing an incidence (IR) of 4.7 per 100 PY. Most seroconversions (23/27) occurred in 188 couples (300.3 PY) who did not use condoms (IR 7.6 vs 1.3). Further analysis was limited to this group. HIV transmission was more efficient from 61 men with symptoms of AIDS (IR 12.2) and from 98 men with a low CD4+ cell count (less than 400 per mm3) (IR 10.5). Men with AIDS symptoms (37/61 vs 21/127) and men with low CD4+ (51/98 vs 7/90) were more frequently treated with antiretroviral therapy (zidovudine). Among partners of men with low CD4+ cell number the IR was lower for those in treatment than for those without treatment (IR 7.3 vs 14.4). After adjustment for the presence of AIDS symptoms, the relative risk of seroconversion for partners of untreated men compared with those treated was 2.6 (95% confidence interval 1.1-6.6) CONCLUSION. Antiretroviral therapy reduces the incidence of sexual transmission of HIV from men with advanced disease to their female partners.
Keywords: AEGIS, HIV-1, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Zidovudine, Condoms, Anti-HIV Agents, Incidence, Confidence Intervals, Human, Female, Male, transmission, therapy, drug therapy, ICA8 920719
WeC1088
