A superiority of viral load over CD4 cell count when predicting mortality in HIV patients on therapy.

ABSTRACT:

Background

CD4 cell count has been identified to be an essential component in monitoring HIV treatment outcome. However, CD4 cell count monitoring sometimes fails to predict virological failure resulting in unnecessary switch of treatment lines which causes drug resistance and limitations of treatment options. This study assesses the use of both viral load (HIV RNA) and CD4 cell count in the monitoring of HIV/AIDS progression.

Methods

Time-homogeneous Markov models were fitted, one on CD4 cell count monitoring and the other on HIV RNA monitoring. Effects of covariates; gender, age, CD4 baseline, HIV RNA baseline and adherence to treatment were assessed for each of the fitted models. Assessment of the fitted models was done using prevalence plots and the likelihood ratio test

SUBMITTER: Shoko C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6377778 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature