AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, December 8, 2003
Staff Medical Writers

"The prospective, multicenter cohort study EuroSIDA has previously reported on predictors and outcomes of anemia in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus," scientistsin Denmark noted. "In a Cox proportional-hazards model with serial measures of CD4+ cell count, plasma viral load, and degrees of anemia fitted as time-dependent variables, the relative hazard of death increased markedly for patients with anemia versus no anemia."

According to J.D. Lundgren and colleagues at Hvidovre University Hospital, "A clinical scoring system was developed and validated for patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy using the most recent laboratory measures."

"Mild and severe anemia were independently (P<0.01) associated with clinical disease progression, with a relative hazard of disease progression of 2.2 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.6- 2.9) and 7.1 (95% CI, 2.5-20.1), respectively, compared with patients with no anemia," their report revealed.

"The mechanisms underlying why hemoglobin is such a strong prognostic marker and whether correction of anemia itself results in a better prognosis remain to be determined," the researchers concluded.

Lundgren and coauthors published their study in Clinical Infectious Diseases (Anemia and survival in human immunodeficiency virus. Clin Infect Dis. 2003;37 Suppl 4:S297-303.

For more information, contact J.D. Lundgren, Hvidovre University Hospital, CHIP 044, DK-2650 Hvidovre, Denmark.

Publisher contact information for the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases is: University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637-2954, USA.

The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of AIDS & HIV and Hematology.

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Lundgren JD, Mocroft A., "Anemia and survival in human immunodeficiency virus", Clin Infect Dis. 2003;37 Suppl 4:S297-303.

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