High Prevalence of AH in HIV Patients on ART, in Bahia, Brazil

Introduction: The prevalence of arterial hypertension (AH) in HIV-patients is highly variable and its association with antiretroviral therapy (ART) is controversial. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of AH and associated factors in HIV-patients on ART. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in HIV-patients attended in a referral center in Salvador, Brazil. We evaluated clinical, socio-demographic and anthropometric data. Student's ttests or Mann-Whitney's and Pearson's chi-square tests were used to compare the groups. Values of p <0.05 were considered significant. The variables that presented a value of p <0.20 were included in a logistic regression model. Results: We evaluated 196 patients (60.7% male) with a mean age of 46.8 ± 11.7 years and a mean body mass index of 24.9 ± 5.3 kg / m2. The median elapsed time since HIV diagnosis and ART use was 11.8 (4.4 - 18.1) and 7.2 (2.7 - 15.3) years, respectively. The prevalence of AH was 41.8%. For individuals > 50 years old, there was a significant association between the increased abdominal circumference and AH and patients ≤ 50 years old presented significant association between AH and overweight, increased abdominal circumference and number of previous ART regimens. After multivariate analysis, age [OR:1.085; 95% CI 1,039 – 1,133], overweight [OR: 4.205; 95% CI 1,841 – 9,606], family history of AH [OR: 2.938; 95% CI 1,253 – 6.885], increased abdominal circumference [OR: 2.774; 95% CI 1.116 – 6.897] and life-time number of ART regimens used [OR: 3.842; 95% CI 1.307 – 11.299] remained associated with AH. Conclusion: AH was highly prevalent and was associated not only with classical risk factors for arterial hypertension, but also with specific ART regimens.