Occurrence of pneumocystis pneumonia in hiv-infected patients and the interference of the highly active antiretroviral therapy

• Published in: Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases
• Main Authors: A. N. Barbosa, L. R. Souza
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SciELO 2008
• Subjects: AIDS; pneumocystis pneumonia; antiretroviral treatment; T CD4+ lymphocytes; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Toxicology. Poisons; RA1190-1270; Zoology; QL1-991; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1678-91992008000100012; https://doaj.org/article/4be19b30cbeb45f2a4070dc06a2f2f60

From the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) has been distinguished as one of the most frequent opportunistic diseases with high morbid-mortality. As from 1996, the advent of the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has changed the characteristics of such epidemic by reducing its related diseases and, as a result, AIDS-related mortality. With the purpose to estimate PCP occurrence and HAART interference, 376 HIV-infected or AIDS patients were studied from January 1992 to December 2002. Among them, 58 (15.5%) PCP cases were found. There was a higher occurrence of PCP in the group of patients in which HAART was not used, with 40 (69.0%) of the episodes. As regards the studied period, a tendency to a linear reduction in annual PCP incidence was observed. The mean of T CD4+ lymphocytes in the patients with PCP (117 cells/mm³) was significantly lower when compared to that of the other individuals (325 cells/mm³). Therefore, this study suggests a temporal reduction in PCP occurrence related to HAART use with higher T CD4+ lymphocyte counts. Nevertheless, this opportunistic infection still shows significant incidence in AIDS patients. (NCT00516581).