SOME HIV patients treated with antiretroviral medications are more likely to get heart attacks – and a team of Dublin-based researchers have just found out why.
Researchers from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and Dublin’s Mater hospital found it was because certain antiretroviral drugs made a patient’s platelets “stickier” and thus more likely to clot.
If a blood clot forms inside an artery, it blocks the flow of blood to the tissue that the artery supplies, which can damage the tissue, in this case the heart.
People with HIV usually take a combination of antiretroviral drugs. The breakthrough means doctors can now be advised to use only certain types of these drugs when treating HIV patients, especially those who have an increased underlying cardiovascular risk.
The research was presented at an international scientific conference on HIV in Montreal yesterday.
Lead researcher Dr Paddy Mallon, a consultant in infectious diseases at the Mater hospital, said the findings will significantly affect the management of patients with HIV and have important implications for the treatment of HIV worldwide.
Prof Dermot Kenny, head of the clinical research centre at the RCSI whose group developed the novel platelet function test that made the discovery, said the results “demonstrated how Ireland is at the forefront in developing novel diagnostics and moving them rapidly into the clinic to aid in patient care”.
Meanwhile, the head of UNAIDS Michel Sidibe said it will cost $25 billion next year to reach its target of halving HIV infections and providing 6.7 million individuals with access to Aids drugs.