Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Saturday, November 20, 1999
"Many patients who are infected with HIV, especially those who contract the disease through intravenous drug use, are also infected with hepatitis-C virus," said Dr. Barbara McGovern, a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and a member of staff at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plains, Mass.
The findings were reported on Friday at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Philadelphia.
McGovern said HIV patients who take a powerful combination of AIDS drugs called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were at particular risk because of the drug's potential toxicity to the liver.
One-third of HIV patients with underlying liver disease at Lemuel Shattuck have had to stop taking HAART.
McGovern and her colleagues conducted a retrospective chart review of all HIV-positive patients who died at their hospital from May 1998 to April 1999, and compared the results with a group of patients who died in 1991 before HAART was available.
The researchers found 22 deaths in the 1998-99 period, half of them due directly to end-stage liver disease while two others suffered liver disease as a significant secondary cause of death.
By contrast, only four -- or 15 percent -- of the 27 HIV patients who died at the hospital in 1991 group succumbed to end-stage liver disease.
"HIV-infected patients who also have hepatitis-C are at increased risk for accelerated progression from chronic, active hepatitis to cirrhosis," McGovern said. "End-stage liver disease is now the leading cause of death among HIV-positive patients at our institution."
Researchers recommend that patients infected by the HIV and hepatitis-C viruses receive careful evaluation before starting HAART treatment. Hepatitis-C is a form of hepatitis that causes inflammation of the liver.
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