Liver biopsy remains the gold standard in the assessment of severity of liver disease. Noninvasive tests have gained popularity to predict histology in view of the associated risks of biopsy. However, many models include tests not readily available, and there are limited data from patients with HIV/hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection. We aimed to develop a model using routine tests to predict liver fibrosis in patients with HIV/HCV coinfection. A retrospective analysis of liver histology was performed in 832 patients. Liver fibrosis was assessed via Ishak score; patients were categorized as 0-1, 2-3, or 4-6 and were randomly assigned to training (n ‫؍‬ 555) or validation (n ‫؍‬ 277) sets. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that platelet count (

Among patients infected with both HIV and HCV, the combination of peginterferon alfa-2a plus ribavirin was significantly more effective than either interferon alfa-2a plus ribavirin or peginterferon alfa-2a monotherapy.

The addition of enfuvirtide to an optimized antiretroviral regimen provided significant antiretroviral and immunologic benefit through 24 weeks in patients who had previously received multiple antiretroviral drugs and had multidrug-resistant HIV-1 infection.

Background Cohort studies and mathematical models have suggested that expanded coverage with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) could decrease HIV transmission. This study focuses on the HIV epidemic, stratified by injection drug use, in the province of British Columbia, Canada, and seeks to estimate the association between plasma HIV-1-viral load, HAART coverage and number of new cases of HIV at the population-level. Methods HAART use, plasma HIV-1-viral level determinations, and rates of reportable sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, are all recorded in province-wide registries allowing for temporal comparisons of these parameters. Trends of new HIV positive tests and number of individuals on HAART were modeled using generalized additive models. Poisson log-linear regression models were used to estimate the association between the outcome new HIV positive tests (per 100 population) and the covariates viral load (log10 transformed), year, and number of individuals on HAART. Conclusions Our results demonstrate a strong association at the population-level between increasing levels of HAART coverage, decreased viral load and decreased new HIV diagnoses/year, against a background of increased HIV testing and increased rates of other STIs in the province. Our results support the proposed secondary benefit of HAART, used within current medical guidelines, on HIV transmission at a population level.