Risk factors for myocardial infarction in HIV-positive patients.

ABSTRACT

We describe the clinical characteristics of 12 HIV-infected patients who suffered from myocardial infarction (MI) in our clinical cohort. They were compared with a control group matched (12) for factors related to cardiovascular risk (age, gender, smoking habit, risk factor for HIV acquisition, hypertension, family history for relevant cardiovascular events, and body mass index) by conditional (fixed-effect) logistic regression analysis. Among patients with MI, 6/12 had never used protease inhibitors (PIs) or were antiretroviral therapy naive. The only variables marginally associated with MI were nadir CD4+ T-cell count <50/mm(3) (odds ratio (OR) 7.2; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.81-64.2; P 0.077) and zenith >100,000 HIV RNA copies/mL (OR 7; 95% CI 0.81-60.2; P 0.076) at univariate analysis. Moreover, the use of PIs did not result in being associated with the risk of MI. Our data show that in HIV-infected patients, PI use does not seem to have any negative impact on MI while the possible impact of advanced HIV infection itself needs further investigations.