Longer Life Expectancy but still Accelerating Aging in HIV Patients under Antiretroviral Therapy
Vicente Soriano 1, Octavio Corral 2
1 UNIR Health Sciences School and Medical Center, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Madrid, Spain; 2 Department of Public Health, UNIR Health Sciences School, Madrid, Spain
*Correspondence: Octavio Corral, Email not available
Abstract
The current goal of HIV treatment is sustained undetectable plasma viremia. This aim is generally associated with good CD4 counts and the absence of opportunistic diseases. Recent advances in antiviral drug development allow to achieve this objective taking one single pill once daily in most HIV patients. Not surprisingly, life expectancy in treated HIV persons is approaching that of uninfected matched controls. However, in the absence of eradication, residual viral replication seems to keep elevated the inflammatory phenomena and immune activation that ultimately lead to increased rates of cardiovascular events, cancers and neurocognitive impairment, and among other age-related illnesses (Stoff et al. Curr HIV/AIDS Rep 2017;14:184-199). Estimating the extent of the disconnect between biological and chronological age has been a challenge to date.
