Heart failure in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection: epidemiology, pathophysiology, treatment, and future research.

Abstract

With the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection has become a chronic disease with longer life expectancy.1 The HIV Outpatient Study showed that, with the addition of antiretroviral therapy (ART), mortality declined from 29.4 to 8.8 per 100 person-years.2 More recent data indicate that the proportions of patients expected to survive 5, 10, and 15 years after seroconversion in the HAART era are 99%, 93%, and 89%, respectively.3 With the increased life expectancy and decreased morbidity from opportunistic infections, the recognition and importance of chronic complications associated with HIV-1 infection are becoming more evident. Cardiac diseases are common complications found in these patients. The spectrum of heart diseases varies significantly between developed and developing countries and, in developed countries, between pre-HAART and post-HAART eras.4 Among them, HIV-associated cardiomyopathy, broadly defined as a decreased left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction or dilated LV by imaging studies, with or without symptoms of heart failure, is currently recognized as a major long-term complication of HIV-1 infection in developing countries; however, it is still prevalent in developed countries.4 Many questions regarding its pathogenesis and treatment remain unanswered. The epidemiology of HIV-associated cardiomyopathy has changed since the first report in 1986.5 The advent of HAART has significantly altered both the incidence and prevalence of this disease, and the definition of HIV-associated cardiomyopathy has also evolved from one of primarily systolic dysfunction to now reflect the growing recognition of diastolic dysfunction in these patients. The incidence of HIV-associated cardiomyopathy is difficult to ascertain because very few studies actually evaluated this measure. In the pre-ART era, HIV-associated cardiomyopathy was defined as symptomatic, systolic dysfunction with a dilated LV and was seen almost exclusively in patients with advanced HIV disease and AIDS. These older studies, …