Researchers report a significant increase in patients hospitalized for ischemic stroke with coexisting HIV infection during the last decade.
Patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be up to three times more likely to have a stroke, compared with persons not affected with HIV, according to a study in the January 19 online issue of Neurology.
“Our findings showed that stroke hospitalizations in the United States decreased by 7% in the general population within the last decade, while stroke hospitalizations for people with HIV rose 67%,” said Bruce Ovbiagele, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Ovbiagele and Avindra Nath, MD, reviewed all stroke hospitalizations in the United States within the last decade. The number of stroke diagnoses in the general population declined, with 71,742 fewer strokes overall. However, stroke diagnoses among people with HIV increased by 537 more strokes from the start of the decade. For those with HIV, the study showed an increase in ischemic strokes but no increase in hemorrhagic strokes, according to the researchers.
“The average age for a stroke among people with HIV was in the 50s, which is much lower than that of those without HIV,” said Dr. Ovbiagele. “This finding suggests that HIV or HIV treatments may be directly related to stroke occurrence. Indeed, one potential explanation is the increasingly widespread use of combination antiretroviral medications among HIV-infected people. While these therapies have greatly increased life expectancy, they may also boost the presence of risk factors that are associated with stroke. Another possibility is that longer exposure to HIV as a result of greater survival, even at low viral load levels, may allow for the virus to increase stroke risk.”