People living with HIV (PLWH) have a higher risk for cardiovascular disease, according to a study published online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Alvaro Alonso, M.D., Ph.D., from Emory University in Atlanta, and colleagues used data from the MarketScan Commercial and Medicare databases from 2009 to 2015 to identify 19,798 PLWH and 59,302 age- and sex-matched, uninfected individuals.

The researchers found that after a mean follow-up of 20 months, patients had 154 myocardial infarctions (MIs), 223 cases of heart failure (HF), 93 strokes, 397 cases of atrial fibrillation, 98 cases of peripheral artery disease, and 935 CVD hospitalizations. Compared with uninfected controls, hazard ratios for PLWH were 1.3 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.9 to 1.9) for MI, 3.2 (95 percent CI, 2.4 to 4.2) for HF, 2.7 (95 percent CI, 1.7 to 4.0) for stroke, 1.2 (95 percent CI, 1.0 to 1.5) for atrial fibrillation, 1.1 (95 percent CI, 0.7 to 1.7) for peripheral artery disease, and 1.7 (95 percent CI, 1.5 to 2.0) for any CVD hospitalization. Associations were similar when adjusting for confounding variables.

"With the aging of the HIV population, developing interventions for cardiovascular health promotion and CVD prevention is imperative," the authors write.

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