Viral suppression gains seen among patients receiving HIV care

BOSTON — Patients who received medical care for HIV were increasingly likely to achieve viral suppression, according to researchers who noticed this trend was particularly notable among two groups, indicating that recent efforts to engage HIV patients in medical care and advocate early ART may be effective.

“The positive trend was actually significant among every subgroup that we examined,” Heather Bradley, PhD, epidemiologist in the behavioral and clinical surveillance branch at the CDC, said during a press event at CROI 2016. “Encouragingly, the largest increases that we observed were seen among populations with the lowest level of viral suppression in [the first year of the study], including young people and non-Hispanic blacks.”

Using the CDC’s Medical Monitoring Project, Bradley and colleagues studied data collected from 23,125 patients from 2009 to 2013. They estimated the proportion of persons receiving HIV medical care who achieved viral suppression (< 200 copies/mL) at both last test and at all tests in the previous 12 months.

The proportion of patients who achieved viral suppression at their most recent test increased from 72% to 80% with statistically significant gains seen among men and women; all age groups; non-Hispanic blacks, non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics; and men who have sex with men, men who have sex with women, and women who have sex with men, according to the researchers. A 13 percentage point gain was seen among those aged 30 to 39 years, to 75%. Data showed 12 percentage point gains among those aged 18 to 29 years and among non-Hispanic blacks — to 68% and 76%, respectively.

The proportion of patients whose HIV was suppressed at all tests in the past 12 months grew from 58% to 68%, with statistically significant gains observed among all subgroups by gender, age, race-ethnicity, and sexual behavior/orientation, the researchers learned. The largest increases were among those aged 18 to 29 years (32% to 51%) and 30 to 39 years (47% to 63%) and among non-Hispanic blacks (49% to 61%).

“These findings are really encouraging in terms of progress toward the National HIV/AIDS Strategy goals of both improving the health of persons living with HIV and reducing new infections,” Bradley said. – by Gerard Gallagher

Reference:

Bradley H, et al. Abstract 53. Presented at: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections; Feb. 22-25, 2016; Boston.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.