Postoperative Mortality Among HIV-Infected Patients

Now that HIV-infected individuals have a near-normal life expectancy, they are increasingly likely to undergo surgical procedures. How do their short-term surgical outcomes compare with those of HIV-uninfected patients?

To answer this question, investigators studied 30-day mortality among HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) who underwent major inpatient surgery and procedure-matched, uninfected controls in the Veterans Aging Cohort Study Virtual Cohort (n=1641 and 3282, respectively). The HIV-infected cohort was primarily male (98.5%) with a median age of 54.3; 80.0% had a CD4 count ≥200 cells/mm³, and 74.1% had an undetectable viral load. The most common surgical procedures were cholecystectomy, hip arthroplasty, spine sur…