Cardiac morbidity in the human immunodeficiency virus infection.

PURPOSE

To evaluate the cardiac involvement in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection.

DESIGN

Prospective and normal individuals group controlled study.

SETTING

The departments of cardiology and infectious diseases of an university hospital.

PATIENTS

137 consecutive HIV infected patients at all stages of the infection and 40 normal noninfected controls.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

Clinical and echocardiographic evaluation was performed. Cardiac symptoms were observed in 10 (7.3%) patients, manifested as congestive heart failure. The global HIV infected population had increased left ventricular (LV) dimensions and wall thickness and decreased LV fractional shortening and ejection fraction when compared with the control population. Seven (5.1%) patients had dilated cardiomyopathy, 9 (6.5%) had global LV hypokinesis with or without LV dilatation and 17 (12.4%) had segmental LV wall motion abnormalities. Right ventricular dilatation was present in 23 (16.8%). Mitral or tricuspid regurgitation of a moderate or severe degree was found in 3 (2.2%) patients. No valvular vegetations were found. Fifty nine (43.1%) patients presented a pericardial effusion. An echocardiogram with at least one abnormality was observed in 104 (75.9%) and a severely abnormal echocardiogram in 34 (24.8%). The presence of cardiac symptoms and of abnormal and severely abnormal echocardiograms was more frequent in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome than in asymptomatic HIV infected patients. When comparing HIV-1 with HIV-2 populations the first showed increased LV systolic and diastolic diameters and LV mass index. There was no statistically significant difference between all risk behavior groups regarding the frequency of cardiac symptoms or the echocardiographic abnormalities found. HIV infected patients with CD4+ lymphocytes counts < or = 100/mm3 had more frequent abnormal and severely abnormal echocardiograms than those with CD4+ lymphocytes counts > 100/mm3.

CONCLUSIONS

Although cardiac symptoms were rare in our population, subclinical cardiac involvement detected by echocardiography was frequent and could involve any cardiac layer. It was not influenced by the patients' risk behavior. The left ventricular trophic response observed in HIV-2 infection seemed less intense than that in HIV-1 infection. Cardiac involvement was more frequent in the more advanced stages of the infection and in patients with lower CD4+ lymphocyte counts.