Does HIV or its treatment thicken artery walls?
Everyone agrees that measuring carotid artery intima media thickness (IMT) is a reliable, painless way to gauge a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease. But researchers measuring these artery walls in people with HIV don’t agree on whether findings portend a higher heart risk in people with HIV. A 36-month look at the French Aquitaine cohort of 223 people with HIV charted an IMT jump over the first 12 months of follow-up, but then a dropoff as people traded in PIs for other antiretrovirals and started lipid-lowering drugs [11]. A 12-month study of 346 French patients traced a slight but significant thickening of the common carotid artery over that time. That change correlated with older age, male gender, smoking, and especially a higher CD4 count at month 0 [12]. But this study found no links between IMT and type or duration of antiretroviral therapy. A 145-person US study matched three groups for age, gender, ethnicity, smoking, blood pressure, and menopausal status-a group that con
