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Editorial
. 2023 May 25:78:100223.
doi: 10.1016/j.clinsp.2023.100223. eCollection 2023.

COVID-19 outcomes in people living with HIV: Peering through the waves

Thaís Lorenna Souza Sales  1 , Maíra Viana Rego Souza-Silva  2 , Polianna Delfino-Pereira  3 , João Victor Baroni Neves  4 , Manuela Furtado Sacioto  5 , Vivian Costa Morais de Assis  4 , Helena Duani  2 , Neimy Ramos de Oliveira  5 , Natália da Cunha Severino Sampaio  5 , Lucas Emanuel Ferreira Ramos  6 , Alexandre Vargas Schwarzbold  7 , Alzira de Oliveira Jorge  8 , Ana Luiza Bahia Alves Scotton  9 , Bruno Mateus de Castro  10 , Carla Thais Cândida Alves da Silva  11 , Carolina Marques Ramos  4 , Fernando Anschau  12 , Fernando Antonio Botoni  13 , Genna Maira Santos Grizende  14 , Guilherme Fagundes Nascimento  15 , Karen Brasil Ruschel  16 , Luanna Silva Monteiro Menezes  17 , Luís César de Castro  18 , Luiz Antônio Nasi  19 , Marcelo Carneiro  20 , Mariana Frizzo de Godoy  21 , Matheus Carvalho Alves Nogueira  22 , Milton Henriques Guimarães Júnior  23 , Patricia Klarmann Ziegelmann  24 , Rafaela Charão de Almeida  12 , Saionara Cristina Francisco  25 , Sidney Teodoro Silveira Neto  26 , Silvia Ferreira Araújo  27 , Thiago Junqueira Avelino-Silva  28 , Márlon Juliano Romero Aliberti  29 , Magda Carvalho Pires  6 , Eduardo Sérgio da Silva  30 , Milena Soriano Marcolino  31
Affiliations
Editorial

COVID-19 outcomes in people living with HIV: Peering through the waves

Thaís Lorenna Souza Sales et al. Clinics (Sao Paulo). .

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 patients infected with HIV, and to compare with a paired sample without HIV infection.

Methods: This is a substudy of a Brazilian multicentric cohort that comprised two periods (2020 and 2021). Data was obtained through the retrospective review of medical records. Primary outcomes were admission to the intensive care unit, invasive mechanical ventilation, and death. Patients with HIV and controls were matched for age, sex, number of comorbidities, and hospital of origin using the technique of propensity score matching (up to 4:1). They were compared using the Chi-Square or Fisher's Exact tests for categorical variables and the Wilcoxon for numerical variables.

Results: Throughout the study, 17,101 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized, and 130 (0.76%) of those were infected with HIV. The median age was 54 (IQR: 43.0;64.0) years in 2020 and 53 (IQR: 46.0;63.5) years in 2021, with a predominance of females in both periods. People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and their controls showed similar prevalence for admission to the ICU and invasive mechanical ventilation requirement in the two periods, with no significant differences. In 2020, in-hospital mortality was higher in the PLHIV compared to the controls (27.9% vs. 17.7%; p = 0.049), but there was no difference in mortality between groups in 2021 (25.0% vs. 25.1%; p > 0.999).

Conclusions: Our results reiterate that PLHIV were at higher risk of COVID-19 mortality in the early stages of the pandemic, however, this finding did not sustain in 2021, when the mortality rate is similar to the control group.

Keywords: COVID-19; HIV; Intensive care unit; Mechanical ventilation; Mortality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart representative of the study population.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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