HIV/HCV Coinfected People Have Higher Risk of Hip Fractures

HIV positive people who also have hepatitis C virus (HCV) are more prone to hip fractures than people with HIV alone, HCV alone, or neither virus, according to research published in the May 22, 2012, advance online edition of Hepatology.

Read more:

HIV Infection Linked to Increased Stroke Risk

HIV positive people may have a higher risk of stroke independent of traditional risk factors, with the largest relative increase among younger people and women, according to study findings published in the May 10, 2012, advance online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

Read more:

Young Men on Antiretroviral Therapy at Risk for Bone Loss

HIV positive adolescent and young adult men taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) -- especially protease inhibitors -- have lower average bone mineral density than HIV negative men of the same age, researchers reported in the May 9, 2012, advance online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Read more:

Bisphosphonate Drugs Linked to Atypical Femur Fractures, but Absolute Risk is Small

Use of bisphosphonates, a class of drugs used to manage bone loss and prevent fractures, actually appears to increase the likelihood of an unusual type of femur (thigh bone) fracture, according to a retrospective analysis described in the advance online edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers emphasized, however, that the absolute risk of atypical femur breaks remains very low.

Read more:

Starting ART below 350 CD4 Cells is Associated with Impaired Artery Function

HIV positive people who ever had a CD4 T-cell count below 350 cells/mm³ are more likely to have reduced flow-mediated dilation, a sign of blood vessel dysfunction linked to cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, according to a study described in the June 1, 2012, issue of AIDS. These findings suggest that starting antiretroviral treatment above this CD4 level may be beneficial.

Read more:

HIV Infection Associated with Increased Risk of Lung Cancer and Other non-AIDS Malignancies

HIV positive people have about a 70% higher rate of lung cancer compared with a similar HIV negative population, according to a U.S. veterans study described in the May 15, 2012, issue of AIDS. Related studies of cancer risk presented at the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2012) in March also saw higher rates of non-AIDS malignancies among people with HIV.

Read more:

Cryptococcal Meningitis Study Halted after Early HIV Treatment Linked to Higher Mortality

A study looking at timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in people with cryptococcal meningitis was stopped early because patients who started HIV treatment immediately had a higher risk of death than those who waited until a few weeks after starting meningitis treatment.

Read more:

Zoledronate Protects HIV Positive Men against Bone Loss for at Least 5 Years

The effects of 2 annual doses of zoledronate persist for at least 5 years in HIV positive men on antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to a New Zealand study published in the March 14, 2012, advance online edition of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Read more: