Predicting Time to Achieving Viral Load Less Than 50 Copies/ml in HIV Infected Patients on Antiretroviral Therapy: a Cohort Study

摘要

Effective HAART reduces blood viral load. This study aims to determine factors which could predict the time to achieve viral load (VL) less than 50 copies/ml in HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART). A bidirectional cohort study was conducted in 2007, with records of patients investigated retrospectively from 1997, and followed prospectively until 2009. The time from starting HAART to achieve VL less than 50 copies/ml date and its associated factors were determined. There were 63.5% (533/840) of HIV patients on ART. Mean age was 36.3 years (SD10.4), 77.9% were males, Chinese (73.0%), sexual route (88.4%) and 79.7% were at clinical stage 3-4 according to WHO staging. Mean CD4 and mean VL were 139.1cell/μl (SD 146.8) and 2.50 × 105 copies/ml (SD 7.82 × 105), respectively. The mean time to achieve VL less than 50 copies/ml was 12.5 months (SD 18). There were 82.7% (441) patients on triple drugs. There was a significant difference in time to achieve VL less than 50 copies/ml by status at start of ART, had opportunistic infection, CD4 at start ART less than 200 cell/ul took longer time to achieve VL less than 50 copies/ml. Significant predictors of the time to achieve VL less than 50 copies/ml was CD4 at start ART. The CD4 at start ART was significant predictors to achieve VL less than 50 copies/ml.