Comparative analysis of some hematological and immunological parameters of HIV-positive patients at a tertiary HIV treatment center in Zaria, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is a major public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to immunological complications of the disease, hematological abnormalities have been documented as strong independent predictors of morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected individuals. Objectives: To determine the effect of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on hematological and immunological parameters in HIV-positive patients. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional analytic study involving 90 HIV-positive treatment naive patients aged 18 years and above attending a tertiary hospital over a 6-month period. Frequencies, proportions, and paired t test were performed using SPSS version 20.0 and the level of significance was set at ≤0.05. Results: The mean (±SD) age of the study participants was 35.6 ± 9.65 years with females comprising of 56 (62%). The mean (±SD) values of the hematological parameters (at baseline and 6 months after initiation of ART) were: hemoglobin concentration [10.9 ± 1.95 vs 11.8 ± 1.83 g/dL, 95% Confidence Interval (CI); −1.1938, −0.5218, P value Conclusion: Anemia, neutropenia, and immunosuppression were the predominant findings in this study at recruitment. However, an improvement of these parameters was observed 6 months after commencement of ART among the HIV-positive treatment naive patients. This showed that ART has improved both the hematological and immunological parameters in HIV-positive treatment-naive patients.