Immunization against pneumococcal disease in HIV-infected patients: conjugate versus polysaccharide vaccine before or after reconstitution of the immune system (CTN-147).

To investigate whether patients should be immunized immediately or delay immunization until after reconstitution of the immune system and whether a conjugate or polysaccharide vaccine results in a better immunologic response. Seventy-nine patients were randomly assigned, utilizing a two by two factorial design to receive immediate immunization or delay immunization. Baseline characteristics were similar for the four arms: 78% men, median age 41 years, median time since HIV diagnosis 0.3 years, median CD4 60 cells/mm(3) and median HIV viral load 5.02 log copies/mL. Results in favour of delayed immunization were observed for those serotypes showing a response. The proportional odds ratios for delayed versus immediate immunization were 0.341 (P = 0.04) and 0.204 (P = 0.004) at months 6 and 12, respectively. No differences in immunological response were observed between the two individual vaccines for the shared serotypes studied. HIV-infected adults produced a higher immunological response to pneumococcal vaccine after reconstitution of the immune system.