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Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Safe in Patients Infected With HIV: Presented at AHA

By Lexa W. Lee

NEW ORLEANS -- November 14, 2008 -- Drug-eluting stents (DES) appear to be safe and effective in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who undergo angioplasty, or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), according to a study presented here at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions.

Patients with HIV who undergo PCI are typically at substantial risk of cardiovascular events, according to lead study author Xiushui Ren, MD, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, California.

Dr. Ren and colleagues conducted their study to compare the rate of cardiac events associated with DES and bare metal stents (BMS) in patients with HIV and in patients without HIV. The study was presented on November 12.

For their retrospective study, the researchers enrolled 94 patients with HIV and 94 non-HIV patients (controls matched by age and sex) who underwent PCI between January 2000 and July 2007. Demographic and clinical data as well as lab and angiographic results were collected from patient charts.

The HIV group and non-HIV group were each divided into subgroups according to whether they received DES or BMS. In the HIV group, 53 patients had DES and 41 had BMS. In the non-HIV control group, 45 patients had DES and 49 had BMS.

At baseline, the HIV group had a lower rate of diabetes, hypertension, prior coronary artery disease, and aspirin use compared with the control group.

Patients with HIV that received DES had a higher number of stents (P < .001) and longer stent length (P < .001) than non-HIV patients with DES, HIV patients with BMS, and non-HIV patients with BMS.

Survival analysis of the data was used to investigate any association of stent type with cardiovascular events during a mean follow-up of 2.4 years.

Results showed that use of DES was associated with lower rates of major adverse cardiac events than use of BMS, regardless of whether patients had HIV or not.

The researchers concluded that since HIV status did not predict outcome after PCI in this study, treating HIV patients with DES is a safe and effective procedure.


[Presentation title: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection. Presentation 6015]

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