Antiretroviral Therapy and Risk for MI

The relation between antiretroviral-induced dyslipidemia and future risk for atherosclerosis remains a topic of extensive investigation and debate. An earlier study by Bozzette and colleagues found no evidence of an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease among antiretroviral-treated patients in the Veterans Affairs system (see ACC Research Notes, April 2003and N Engl J Med 2003; 348:702). However, the mean duration of combination therapy was only 15 months. Now, two large epidemiologic studies suggest that the risk for myocardial infarction (MI) increases with duration of exposure to combination antiretroviral therapy.

Using data prospectively collected in the French Epidemiologic Database on HIV, Mary-Krause and colleagues examined t…