Comorbid diseases and conditions in people with HIV in the UK.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to characterize the risk of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the UK progressing to pre-specified HIV-associated comorbidities, compared with matched, HIV-negative controls.

METHODS: Primary and secondary care records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and linked Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) were used to identify PLHIV, and a matched cohort from the HIV-negative population. Kaplan Meier curves and cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the risk of developing comorbidities including central nervous system (CNS) disorders, end-stage renal disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension, stroke, and cancer.

RESULTS: 2,945 PLHIV were matched to a cohort of 5,890 HIV-negative controls. PLHIV demonstrated an increased hazard ratio (HR) for time to development of incident sleep disorders, depression, osteoporosis, stroke, cancer and renal disease when compared with their matched HIV-negative control. The HRs for anxiety, hypertension, diabetes, and CVD were not significantly increased.

CONCLUSIONS: PLHIV in the UK were at a higher risk of developing a number of comorbid conditions, highlighting the need for regular attendance of health reviews such as the annual health reviews recommended by the British HIV Associations (BHIVA) quality standard for care, which are currently not uniformly conducted.