[Neuropsychological performance in patients with human inmunodeficiency (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection].

INTRODUCTION

Few investigations have focused their attention on the study of neuropsychological deterioration associated to human inmunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection. This study has aimed to evaluate neuropsychological performance and neuropsychological impairment rates in HIV and HCV positive patients (HIV+/HCV+) of Spanish nationality of the region of Galicia.

METHOD

Three groups of 122 subjects underwent neuropsychological evaluation: 55 HIV+, 29 HIV/HCV+ and 34 seronegative to both HIV/HCV. All subjects gave their written informed consent and underwent the same evaluation process.

RESULTS

HIV+ and HIV/HCV+ patients showed significantly lower levels of neuropsychological performance in all neuropsychological domains evaluated in comparison with the control group. Nevertheless, only visual memory showed significantly differences between both groups. The rate of neuropsychological impairment of HIV+/HCV+ patients (62%) was significantly greater than that of HIV+ (38%).

CONCLUSIONS

HIV and HIV/HCV infection are related to low levels of neuropsychological performance, HIV/HCV patients showing lower performance in visual memory tasks. HIV/HCV coinfection represents a neuropsychological impairment risk factor in HIV patients, because it influences the probability of having neuropsychological impairment. However, this may not only be related with HCV, but also with being in methadone-maintenance programs.