CD4+ T-cell Count may not be a Useful Strategy to Monitor Antiretroviral Therapy Response in HTLV-1/HIV Co-infected Patients

Title:CD4+ T-cell Count may not be a Useful Strategy to Monitor Antiretroviral Therapy Response in HTLV-1/HIV Co-infected Patients

Volume: 15 Issue: 3

Author(s): Alain Vandormael*, Filipe Rego, Siva Danaviah, Luiz Carlos Junior Alcantara, David R. Boulware and Tulio de Oliveira

Affiliation:

• Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban,south africa

Keywords: HIV, HTLV-1, CD4+ count, co-infection, ART, treatment failure, South Africa.

Abstract: Background: HTLV-1/HIV co-infection is known to elevate the CD4+ T-cell counts of treatment-naïve persons. We investigated whether HTLV-1/HIV co-infected patients continued to have elevated CD4+ T-cell counts after developing virologic failure on antiretroviral therapy (ART).

Methods: The data is taken from a drug resistance study located in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. All participants (N=383) presented for repeated CD4+ T-cell count and HIV viral load level testing between January 2006 and March 2014. We used a random-coefficient model to estimate the change in CD4+ T-cell count and HIV viral load level by HTLV-1/HIV co-infection status over time, adjusting for age, sex, and duration of virologic failure.

Results: HTLV-1/HIV co-infected participants (n=8) had higher CD4+ T-cell counts, with a positive difference of 117.2 cells/μL at the ART initiation date (p-value=0.001), 114.7 cells/μL (pvalue< 0.001) 12 months after this date, and 112.3 cells/μL (p-value=0.005) 24 months after this date, holding all else constant. In contrast, there was no difference in the HIV viral load level by HTLV-1/HIV co-infected status throughout the observation period.

Conclusion: We show that HTLV-1/HIV co-infected participants continued to have elevated CD4+ T-cell counts after developing virologic failure on ART, despite no difference in their HIV viral load levels when compared with HIV mono-infected participants. Our results indicate that CD4+ T-cell count testing may not be a useful strategy to monitor ART response in the presence of HTLV-1/HIV co-infection.

Cite this article as:

Vandormael Alain*, Rego Filipe, Danaviah Siva, Carlos Junior Alcantara Luiz, Boulware R. David and de Oliveira Tulio, CD4+ T-cell Count may not be a Useful Strategy to Monitor Antiretroviral Therapy Response in HTLV-1/HIV Co-infected Patients, Current HIV Research 2017; 15 (3) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1570162X15666170216114917

DOI https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1570162X15666170216114917	Print ISSN 1570-162X
Publisher Name Bentham Science Publisher	Online ISSN 1873-4251