Сердечно-сосудистые заболевания у ВИЧ-инфицированных пациентов : предсказать и предупредить. [ Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients.Predict It and Prevent It ].2015
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients.Predict It and Prevent It. 2015
In this downloadable slideset, Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD, and David A. Wohl, MD, discuss data on using traditional and newer markers and modalities to predict and prevent cardiovascular disease in HIV-infected patients.
Format: Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt)
File size: 3.21 MB
Date posted: 7/16/2015
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Сердечно-сосудистые заболевания у ВИЧ-инфицированных пациентов : предсказать и предупредить. [ Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients.Predict It and Prevent It ].2015
1. Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-
Infected Patients: Predict It and
Prevent It
This program is supported by an educational grant from
Bristol-Myers Squibb
2. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Faculty
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD
Professor of Medicine
University of California at San Francisco
San Francisco General Hospital
San Francisco, California
David A. Wohl, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
School of Medicine
Site Leader, AIDS Clinical Trials Unit-Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Director, North Carolina AIDS Training and Education Center
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Co-Director for HIV Services
North Carolina Department of Correction
Raleigh, North Carolina
3. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Disclosures
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD, has disclosed that she has served on
the advisory boards for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead
Sciences, and Merck and has received honoraria from Gilead
Sciences.
David A. Wohl, MD, has disclosed that he has received
consulting fees from Gilead Sciences and Janssen and funds
for research support from Gilead Sciences and Merck.
4. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
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5. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Overview
Epidemiology of cardiovascular disease in the setting of
HIV
Monitoring and assessing CVD risk in HIV-infected pts
Inflammatory markers and imaging techniques and how
they help elucidate effects of ART on CVD risk
Role of antiretrovirals in CVD risk
The role of statins in HIV-infected pts with CVD
7. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Rates of CVD are Higher in HIV-Positive
Pts
HIV associated with a 50% increased acute MI risk after
adjustment for major traditional risk factors
Increased risk remained among those with well-treated
HIV
Impact of HIV on risk comparable to traditional risk factors
including HTN, DM, and hyperlipidemia
Drivers of CVD in HIV may include a combination of
factors including a higher prevalence of traditional (eg,
smoking) and nontraditional (eg, stress) risks, the effects
of ART, and the effects of HIV itself
Freiberg MS, et al. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2013;173:614-622.
8. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
The Link Between HIV and CVD
Rate of acute MI higher in HIV-positive pts[1]
HIV infection is a risk factor for ischemic stroke[2]
HIV-infected men have a greater prevalence of coronary
artery plaque[1,3]
1. Triant VA, et al. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2007;92:2506-2512. 2. Chow FC, et al. J Acquir Immune
Defic Syndr. 2012;60:351-358. 3. Post WS, et al. Ann Intern Med. 2014;160:458-467.
AcuteMIsper
1000PYs
18-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74
0
20
40
80
100
60
HIV-positive pts
HIV-negative pts
Age (yrs)
9. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
CVD and Mortality in HIV
Second leading non-HIV cause of death in US (~ 15%)[1]
and third in
Europe (~ 8%)[2]
Deaths due to CVD range from 6% to 15% in different cohorts[1-4]
As HIV-related deaths has decreased, rate of CVD death has
increased[5]
– However, absolute rates of MI and stroke have declined with CVD risk
factor reduction, use of ART regimens with better lipid effects, and
improvements in immunocompetence[6-9]
In the US, HIV-infected individuals hospitalized for MI
– Have a higher mortality compared with controls (HR: 1.38; P = .04)
– Have lower rates of procedures[10]
1. Palella FJ, et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2006;43:27-34. 2. Lewden C, et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2008;48:
590-598. 3. Smith CJ, et al. Lancet. 2014;384:241-248. 4. Sackoff JE, et al. Ann Intern Med. 2006;145:397-406. 5. Hanna D, et
al. CROI 2014. Abstract 729. 6. Klein DB, et al. CROI 2014. Abstract 737. 7. Klein DB, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2015;60:1278-1280.
8. Marcus JL, et al. CROI 2014. Abstract 741. 9 Marcus JL, et al. AIDS. 2014;28:1911-1919. 10. Pearce D et al AM J Cardiol
10. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
D:A:D: CVD Deaths Decreased in Era of
Modern ART
Smith C, et al Lancet. 2014:384:241-248.
Most Common Causes of Death, 1999-2011
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
AllDeaths(%)
Total
(N = 3909)
1999-2000
(n = 256)
2001-02
(n = 788)
2003-04
(n = 862)
2005-06
(n = 718)
2007-08
(n = 658)
2009-11
(n = 627)
AIDS related
Liver related
CVD related
Non-AIDS cancer
Other
Unknown
11. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Evolution of CVD With Aging HIV-Infected
Population
As the HIV-infected population continues to age, new
cardiovascular issues are emerging
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Pericardial effusion
Dilated cardiomyopathy
Coronary artery disease
Peripheral vascular disease
Pulmonary HTN
Diastolic dysfunction
Sudden cardiac death
Atrial fibrillation
Pre-ART ART
Continuous ART
Earlier initiation of ART
12. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Sudden Cardiac Death in HIV
HIV-positive pts (n = 2860) at San Francisco General Hospital between 2000-2009
– 230 deaths; 30 (13%) were SCD
SCDs accounted for 86% of all cardiac deaths (30 of 35)
HIV SCD rate: 2.6/1000 person-yrs (> 4 times general population)
Tseng ZH, et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2012;59:1891-1896.
Why is the rate of SCD higher in HIV?
How can we predict at-risk individuals?
How do we prevent this?
50
40
30
20
10
0
Mortalityper
1000PYs
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Yr
AIDS
SCD
13. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Chronic Inflammation and Increased Risk
for Comorbidities in HIV-Positive Pts
Untreated HIV Infection
Loss of immunoregulatory cells HIV replication Loss of gut mucosal integrity
and microbial translocation
Decreased but persistent chronic
inflammation, immune activation,
elevated coagulation markers,
microbial translocation, and
increased risk of coinfection
Increased incidence of comorbidities and clinical disease
ART
Traditional comorbidity risk factors, such as dyslipidemia,
smoking, lipodystrophy, HTN, obesity, substance use
Deeks SG. Annu Rev Med. 2011;62:141-155.
14. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Biomarkers of Inflammation Are Elevated
in HIV-Positive Pts, Even When on ART
*Adjusted for age, race, smoking, hepatitis C infection, obesity, diabetes and MACS site. †
Error bars represent 99.7% CIs, calculated with Bonferroni
adjustment to maintain a family-wise error rate of 0.05. Filled markers represent statistical significance (P < .002).
Adjusted Percentage Differences in Biomarkers of Inflammation and Immune
Activation in HIV-Positive Pts and Uninfected Individuals*†
(MACS, 1984-2009)
Difference(%)
CXC
L10sC
D
27
IL-10sIL-2R
α
IL-2
sTN
FR
2IFN
-γ
CXC
L13TN
F-α
IL-12p70sIL-6RBAFFCC
L2
IL-6sC
D
14
G
M
-C
SFCC
L11
CR
P
IL-1β
sG
P130
IL-8CC
L13CC
L17CC
L4
100
60
0
-40
80
40
-20
-60
20
HIV suppressed
relative to ART naive
HIV suppressed
relative to HIV uninfected
Wada NI, et al. AIDS. 2015;29:463-471.
15. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
SMART: High Levels of Inflammation
Markers Associated With Risk of CVD
Time-to-event methods were used to study associations of the baseline level
of IL-6, hsCRP, and D-dimer with a CVD event
*IL-6 quartiles are < 1.10, 1.10-1.76, 1.77-3.01, > 3.01 pg/mL.
†
hsCRP quartiles are < 0.72, 0.72-1.71, 1.72-4.17, > 4.17 μg/mL.
‡
D-dimer quartiles are < 0.13, 0.13-0.21, 0.22-0.37, > 0.37 μg/mL.
Quartile 1 (low) Quartile 2 Quartile 3 Quartile 4 (high)
Time From Randomization (Mos)
Duprez DA, et al. PLoS One. 2012;7:e44454.
IL-6*
(n = 5037)
hsCRP†
(n = 5095)
D-dimer‡
(n = 5069)
CumulativeParticipantsWithCVDEvent(%)
P < .001 P < .001P < .00115
5
10
0
20
0 8 16 24 324 12 20 28 36 4440 48 0 8 16 24 324 12 20 28 36 4440 48 0 8 16 24 324 12 20 28 36 4440 48
16. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Ryom L, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 742.
D:A:D Renal Disease and CVD
Kaplan-Meier Progression to CVD by Confirmed Baseline eGFR
25
20
15
10
5
0
PercentageWithCVD
Mos After Baseline
720 12 24 36 48 60
Baseline (confirmed) eGFR
≤ 30
> 30 - ≤ 60
> 60 - ≤ 90
> 90
Pts Under Follow-up, n
> 90
> 60 - ≤ 90
> 30 - ≤ 60
≤ 30
24,605
9155
987
46
24,023
8907
937
39
22,376
8313
835
30
20,895
7681
760
26
18,979
6977
649
22
15,631
5989
524
13
13,001
5134
444
8
17. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Low CD4+ Cell Count and Traditional CVD
Risk Factors Predictive of Primary MI
Low CD4+ cell count independently predicts primary MIs
– Detectable HIV-1 RNA associated with primary MI risk at CD4+ cell counts
≥ 350 and ≥ 500 cells/mm3
– Traditional CVD risk factors are important predictors of primary MIs
Model Adjusted Risk of Primary MI*
Unweighted CD4 models
CD4 < 100 1.95 (1.13-3.36)
CD4 < 200 1.69 (1.07-2.67)
CD4 < 350 1.36 (0.88-2.08)
CD4 < 500 1.26 (0.79-2.01)
CD4 and HIV-1 RNA models (reference: ≥ threshold and undetectable HIV-1 RNA)
CD4 ≥ 350 and detectable HIV-1 RNA 1.81 (1.17-2.81)
CD4 ≥ 500 and detectable HIV-1 RNA 1.61 (1.03-2.54)
*Adjusted for age, sex, tobacco, IDU, MSM, diabetes, statin use, treated hypertension, eGFR, ART.
Drozd DR, et al. CROI 2014. Abstract 739.
19. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Assessing CV Risk in HIV Pts
Clinical
Monitoring lipids
Assessing traditional risk
factors
HIV-related factors
Research
Coronary artery calcium score
CIMT
Markers of endothelial function
FDG-PET
Markers of inflammation
20. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Comparison of Clinical CVD Risk
Calculators: Input
Characteristic
ACC/
AHA
ASCVD
Framingham
SCORE QRISK2 JBS3 ASSIGN
MI CVD
Diabetes ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Race/ethnicity ✓ ✓ ✓
Social deprivation ✓ ✓ ✓
Hypertension therapy ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
BMI ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Family history of premature
CVD/CHD
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Chronic kidney disease ✓ ✓
Atrial fibrillation ✓ ✓
Rheumatoid arthritis ✓ ✓ ✓
Age, sex, smoking, lipids, blood pressure included in all models
Preiss D, et al. Can J Cardiol. 2015;31:613-619.
21. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Comparison of CVD Risk Calculators:
10-Yr Prediction Output
Event
ACC/
AHA
ASCVD
Framingham
SCORE QRISK2 JBS3 ASSIGN
MI CVD
Fatal or nonfatal ASCVD ✓ ✓ ✓
CHD, TIA or stroke, or CVD
death
✓ ✓
Fatal or nonfatal MI ✓
Fatal CVD ✓
Lifetime prediction ✓
Chance of survival free of MI or
stroke
✓
Fatal or nonfatal ASCVD ✓
Preiss D, et al. Can J Cardiol. 2015;31:613-619.
22. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
1. Regan S, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 751. 2. Thompson-Paul A, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 747.
5-Yr Predicted Rate (%)
Framingham Risk Score[1]
5-YrEventRate(%)
5-YrEventRate(%)
ACC/AHACVD Risk Calculator[1]
5-Yr Predicted Rate (%)
Observed
Predicted
Observed
Predicted
CVD Outcomes Underestimated in HIV-
Positive Pts by Risk Calculators
CVD risk scores calculated with data from 2006-2009 for pts in Partners HealthCare
System Cohort[1]
n = 2270 n = 2152
25
20
15
10
5
0
< 2.5 2.5-4.9 5.0-7.4 7.5-9.9
25
20
15
10
5
0
< 2.5 2.5-4.9 5.0-7.4 7.5-9.9
An outpatient study cohort (n = 2392) had similar findings of underestimated CVD risk
(15% to 25%)[2]
23. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Reducing CVD Risk Factors Can Decrease
Risk of CVD in Older HIV+ Pts
Effective treatment of modifiable risk factors, such as smoking,
cholesterol, and BP can significantly reduce an individual’s CVD risk
*Reduced by 1 mmol/L. †
Reduced by 10 mm Hg.
RelativeHazardof
DevelopingCVD
0
6
2
4
5
3
40 45 50 55 60 65
Age (Yrs)
Model for Change in Relative Risk of CVD From Smoking Cessation, Reducing Cholesterol,* or
Reducing Systolic BP†
in a Cohort of 24,323 HIV-Positive Pts Without Prior CVD (D:A:D Study)
Reducing cholesterol
Reducing systolic BP
Smoking cessation
Petoumenos K, et al. HIV Med. 2014;15:595-603.
24. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Aspirin and CVD
Secondary prevention: Pts with established CAD, TIA/CVA:
dose 75 mg-162 mg/day (up to 325 mg for some pts)[1]
– Definitive benefit in MI, stroke, and CV death
Primary prevention less clear: “Consider 75-162 mg/day for pts
at higher risk, especially those with 10-yr risk of CHD ≥ 10%
whose risk of bleeding is not increased”[2]
– Reduces risk of first MI
– No reduction in rates of stroke or CV death
– Balance increase bleeding vs benefit
Aspirin, HIV, and MI: study in Boston, use of aspirin in HIV not
associated with lower MI rates but limitations of study[3]
1. Smith SC, et al. Circulation. 2006;113:2363-2372. 2. Pearson TA, et al. Circulation. 2002;106:388-391.
3. Suchindran S, et al. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2014;1:ofu076.
25. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
The Role of CV Risk Analysis Tools in HIV-
Infected Pts
ACC/AHA ASCVD
– User-friendly
– Analysis can be done using online tool or via mobile phone app
– Indicates if pt cannot be assessed because risk is too low
– Provides 10-yr and lifetime risk assessment
27. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Markers of Inflammation, Vascular
Imaging:
What They Are and What They Tell Us
Inflammatory and coagulation markers
hsCRP, IL-6, D-dimer
Imaging: CV Risk and progression of atherosclerosis
Carotid ultrasound: CIMT
Carotid CT: CAC and CTA
Brachial artery reactivity testing: FMD and endothelial
function
PET and arterial inflammation
28. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Chronic Inflammation Persists in the
Setting of Treated HIV Infection
T-cell activation higher in treated HIV vs controls[1,2]
Lipopolysaccharide higher in treated HIV vs controls[2]
Tissue factor elevated in treated HIV vs controls[3]
Many biomarkers of chronic inflammation elevated in HIV
suppressed pts vs uninfected[4]
1. Hunt PW, et al. J Infect Dis. 2003;187:1534-1543. 2. Brenchley JM, et al. Nat Med. 2006;12:1365-
1371. 3. Funderburg NT, et al. Blood. 2010;115:161-167. 4. Wada NI, et al. AIDS. 2015;29:463-471.
29. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Pts With Sustained Viral Suppression Had Lower Levels of T-Cell Activation
Than Untreated Pts but Higher Levels Than Uninfected Controls
T-Cell Activation Persists Despite Viral
Suppression With ART
Hunt PW, et al. J Infect Dis. 2003;187:1534-1543.
30
20
10
0
ActivatedCD4+TCells(%)
HIV Infected,
Untreated
(n = 13)
HIV Infected,
Treated
(n = 99)
HIV
Uninfected
(n = 6)
P < .001
P < .001
75
50
25
0
ActivatedCD8+TCells(%)
HIV Infected,
Untreated
(n = 13)
HIV Infected,
Treated
(n = 99)
HIV
Uninfected
(n = 6)
P < .001
P < .001
30. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Plasma IL-6 Levels Correlated With
Incidence of Mortality
SMART and ESPRIT trials
19,000 person-yrs of follow-up among
4304 pts (median age: 42 yrs; median
CD4+ cell count: 526; 77% men)
– 157 all-cause deaths
– 117 non-AIDS deaths
– 101 progressions to AIDS
– 121 CVD
– 99 NADM
Baseline plasma IL-6 was a stronger
predictor of all cause mortality and
many fatal non-AIDS events than D-
dimer and hsCRP
Adjustment attenuated the
associations but IL-6 remained
significant including for CVD
Borges A, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 761.
Crude Incidence of Clinical
Outcomes by Plasma IL-6
25
20
15
10
5
0
CrudeIncidenceRates
per1000PYFU(95%CI)
Events, n 14 21 35 87 6 16 23 72 15 26 24 36 13 21 33 54 10 19 28 42
AIDS CVD NADM
All
Cause
Death
Non-AIDS/
Violent/
Accidental
Death
1st quartile
2nd quartile
3rd quartile
4th quartile
31. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Role of Monocytes in
Atheromatous Plaque Development
HIV in conjunction with pro-atherogenic lipids up-regulates
adhesion molecules on endothelia
HIV activates monocytes
– Increase monocyte transmigration
– Increase uptake of oxLDL
– Promote differentiation into foam cells
– And contribute to atherosclerotic plaque formation
Campbell J, et al. AIDS. 2014;28:2175-2187.
32. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Recent Carotid Studies in HIV
IMT progression occurs at bifurcation region and is
associated with hsCRP in HIV[1]
VCAM-1 and CD14dim16- associated with carotid IMT in
HIV[2]
Carotid IMT and hsCRP associated with all cause death in
HIV[3]
FRAM study: Association of HIV with IMT similar to that of
traditional risk factors like smoking[4]
1. Hsue PY, et al. J Am Heart Assoc. 2012;1:pii: jah3-e000422. 2. Barbour JD, et al. Atherosclerosis.
2014;232:52-58. 3. Mangili A, et al. Atherosclerosis. 2011;214:468-473. 4. Grunfeld C, et al. AIDS. 2009;
23:1841-1849.
33. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
HIV and Carotid IMT in MACS/WIHS
Cohorts
1.6-fold greater risk of new plaque formation in HIV-positive vs HIV-negative individuals (RR: 1.61;
95% CI: 1.12-2.32), adjusting for cardiometabolic factors
Increased plaque occurred even among persistently virologically suppressed HIV-positive
individuals vs uninfected individuals (RR: 1.56; 95% CI: 1.07-2.27)
HIV-positive individuals with BL CD4+ ≥ 500 cells/mm3
had plaque risk not statistically different from
uninfected individuals
Hanna D, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2015;[Epub ahead of print].
HIV infected (n = 571)
HIV uninfected (n = 207)
100
80
60
40
20
0
Any
Plaque,
Baseline
Any
Plaque,
Last Visit
Formation
of New
Plaque
WIHSParticipantsWith
FocalCarotidArteryPlaque
(%)
43
(8)
16
(8)
93
(16) 21
(10)
70
(12)16
(8)
HIV infected (n = 363)
HIV uninfected (n = 172)
100
80
60
40
20
0
Any
Plaque,
Baseline
Any
Plaque,
Last Visit
Formation
of New
Plaque
MACSParticipantsWith
FocalCarotidArteryPlaque
(%)
90
(25)
41
(24)
132
(36) 51
(30)
94
(26)
26
(15)
34. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
CT Angiography in HIV
Asymptomatic HIV-positive pts had higher prevalence and degree of coronary
atherosclerosis vs uninfected controls[1]
Among ART-treated HIV-infected pts, plasma sCD163 significantly higher
(P = .02) and correlated with noncalcified plaque[2]
1. Lo J, et al. AIDS. 2010;24:243-253. 2. Burdo TH, et al. J Infect Dis. 2011;204:1227-1236.
(n = 78)(n = 32)
Coronary Atherosclerosis[1]
100
80
60
40
20
0
PrevalenceofCoronary
Atherosclerosis(%)
P = .02
34.4%
59.0%
Non-HIV–Infected
Control Subjects
HIV-Infected
Subjects
35. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Subramanian S, et al. JAMA. 2012;308:379-386.
Aortic Inflammation Higher Among Pts
With HIV Infection
Cardiac 18F-FDG-PET assessment of arterial wall inflammation in pts with
HIV infection on stable ART (n = 27) vs uninfected controls (n = 27)
P < .001
AorticFDGUptakeTBR
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
HIV
(n = 27)
FRS-
Matched
Controls
Athero-
sclerotic
Controls Natural Log of sCD163 (ng/mL)
AorticTBR
P = .29
3.6
3.4
3.2
3.0
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2.0
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5
P = .03
37. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
D:A:D: Incidence of MI Increases With
Exposure to Combination ART
Incidence of MI by Yr of Exposure to ART
D:A:D Study. N Engl J Med. 2003;349:1993-2003.
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Incidenceper1000Person-Yr
Exposure (Yr)
8
None > 4< 1 1-2 2-3 3-4
Events, n
Person-yrs, n
3
5714
9
4140
14
4801
22
5847
31
7220
47
8477
38. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Magnificent Consortium: Traditional, HIV,
Genetic CAD Factors and Cardiac Events
571 cases with first CAD
event compared with 1304
controls
– CAD events: MI, unstable
angina, angioplasty/stent,
coronary bypass surgery
Multivariate analysis
– Current ART (including
current ABC) associated
with similar risk for cardiac
event as CAD risk factors
– HTN, high cholesterol,
history of smoking
Case-Control Study of 24 Observational HIV
Cohorts (US, EU, Australia, and Argentina)
to Evaluate CAD, 2000-2009
Rotger M, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2013;57:112-121 Odds Ratio (95% CI)
0 1 2 3 4
Quartile 2 vs quartile 1
Quartile 3 vs quartile 1
Quartile 4 vs quartile 1
CD4
HIV-1 RNA
Indinavir ≥ 1 yr of exposure
Lopinavir ≥ 1 yr of exposure
On ART
Abacavir current exposure
Low HDL cholesterol
Hypertension
High cholesterol
Past smoking
Diabetes
Family history of CAD
Age per 5 yrs
Current smoking
39. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
START Study: Randomized Comparison of
Immediate vs Delayed ART
Study stopped in May 2015 due to excess of events (86 vs 41) in the
deferred treatment arm
Most common AIDS-related illnesses among study participants were
pulmonary TB, Kaposi’s sarcoma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; the
most common serious non-AIDS–related illnesses were cancer, heart
attack, and deaths due to various causes
Immediate
treatment
Defer treatment
until CD4+ cell count
≤ 350 cells/mm³
Treatment-naive
pts with
CD4+ cell count
> 500 cells/mm³
(N = 4685)
NIH. Press release. May 27, 2015.
Study endpoints
(over 6 yrs)
Fatal AIDS or nonfatal
serious AIDS events (CV,
liver, renal, and cancer)
Non-AIDS–related death
40. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
CVD in SMART Trial of Immediate vs
Deferred ART
Outcomes including CVD (ART Better than no ART)
El Sadr W, et al. N Engl J Med. 2006;355:2283-2296.
Endpoint* Drug Conservation Group
(N = 2720)
Viral Suppression Group
(N = 2752)
HR for Conservation
Group vs Viral
Suppression Group
(95% CI)
P Value
Participants With
Event, n
Event Rate
(per 100 Person-Yr)
Participants With
Event, n
Event Rate
(per 100 Person-Yr)
Primary endpoint 120 3.3 47 1.3 2.6 (1.9-3.7) < .001
Death from any
cause
55 1.5 30 0.8 1.8 (1.2-2.9) .007
Opportunistic disease
Serious 13 0.4 2 0.1 6.6 (1.5-29.1) .01
Nonserious 63 1.7 18 0.5 3.6 (2.1-6.1) < .001
Major CV, renal, or
hepatic disease
65 1.8 39 1.1 1.7 (1.1-2.5) .009
Fatal or nonfatal
CVD
48 1.3 31 0.8 1.6 (1.0-2.5) .05
Fatal or nonfatal
renal disease
9 0.2 2 0.1 4.5 (1.0-20.9) .05
Fatal or nonfatal
liver disease
10 0.3 7 0.2 1.4 (0.6-3.8) .46
Grade 4 event 173 5.0 148 4.2 1.2 (1.0-1.5) .13
Grade 4 event or death
from any cause
205 5.9 164 4.7 1.3 (1.0-1.6) .03
*Numbers of individual events of each type do not sum to the total number because some participants
had more than 1 event. Endpoint definitions are listed in the Supplementary Appendix. Grade 4 events
were determined on the basis of toxicity grades developed by the Division of AIDS of the NIAID.
41. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Summary of Key Analyses Showing ABC
Associated With Risk of MI
Study
Study
Design
Age, Yrs
(range)
Event
(n)
Pts,
N
TDF
CV Effect
ABC
CV Effect
Time on
ABC, Mos
Risk of MI
(95% CI)
D:A:D[1]
Cohort
40
(35-47)
MI, validated
(387)
22,625 No Yes ≥ 6
1.70
(1.17-2.47)
D:A:D 2013[2]
Cohort
39
(33-46)
MI
(493)
32,663 Yes 1.47
SMART[3]
RCT
45
(39-51)
MI, validated
(19)
2752 No Yes Current
4.3
(1.4-13.0)
STEAL[4]
RCT
45.7
±8.8
MI
(3)
357 No Yes 96 2.2
QPHID[5]
CC
47
(22-67)
MI
(125)
7053 No Yes 6
1.79
(1.16-2.76)
Danish[6]
Cohort
39
(33-47)
MI
(67)
2952
No Yes > 6
2.00
(1.07-3.76)
VA (Choi)[7]
Cohort 48
CV event
(501)
10,931 No Yes 6
1.64
(0.88-3.08)
Swiss[8]
Cohort Not given
CVD event
(350)
11,625 No Yes > 1-6
3.36
(2.04-5.53)
MAGNIFICENT[9]
CC
50
(22-85.5)
CVD event
(571)
571 No Yes Current
1.56
(1.17-2.07)
NA-ACCORD[10]
Cohort
MI, validated
(301)
16,733 Yes > 6 1.33
Swiss HIV
Cohort[11] Cohort 45
CVD event
(365)
11,856 Yes > 6 2.06 (1.43-2.98)
1. Friis-Moller N, et al. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil. 2010;17:491-501. 2. Friis-Moller N, et al. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2015;[Epub ahead of print].
3. SMART/INSIGHT Study Group. AIDS. 2008;22:F17-24. 4. Martin A, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2009;49:1591-1601. 5. Durand M, et al. JAIDS. 2011;57:245-
253. 6. Obel N, et al. HIV Medicine. 2010;11:130-136. 7. Choi AI, et al. AIDS. 2011;25:1289-1298. 8. Young J, et al. IAS 2013. Abstract MOPE070.
9. Rotger M, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2013;57:112-121. 10. Palella F, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 749LB. 11. Young J, et al. JAIDS. 2015;[Epub ahead of print].
42. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Summary of Key Analyses Showing ABC
NOT Associated With Risk of MI
Study Study
Design
Age,
Yrs
(Range)
Event
(n)
Pts, N TDF
CV Effect
ABC
CV
Effect
Time on
ABC, Mos
Adj Risk of
MI
(95% CI)
FHDB[1]
CC
47
(41-54)
MI
(289)
74,958 No No* > 6
1.27ǂ
(0.64-2.49)
ALLRT/
ACTG[2] Cohort
37
(27-50)
MI
(36)
5056 No No†
72
0.70
(0.2 -2.4)
VA[3]
Cohort 46
MI
(278)
19,424 No No* 24
1.18
(0.92-1.50)
FDA[4]
Meta-
analysis
of
RCTs
36-42
MI
(24)
9868 No No 19
1.02
(0.56-1.84)
*All or majority of pts were treatment naive at ABC inclusion.
†
All or majority of pts were treatment experienced at ABC initiation.
ǂ
Without adjustment for cocaine use OR: 2.01 (1.11-3.64).
1. Lang S, et al. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170:1228-1238. 2. Ribaudo HJ, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2011;52:929-
940.
3. Bedimo RJ, et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2011;53:84-91. 4. Ding X, et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr.
2012;61:441-447.
43. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
DHHS Guidelines: Factors to Consider
When Selecting an Initial ART Regimen
When selecting a regimen for an individual pt, a number of
pt and regimen specific characteristic should be
considered, with the goal of providing a potent, safe,
tolerable, and easy to adhere to regimen for the pt in
order to achieve sustained virologic control
– CVD is one of several specific comorbidities listed among
those to consider
– In pts with high cardiac risk, consider avoiding ABC- and
LPV/RTV-based regimens
– Associated with increased cardiovascular risk in some studies
DHHS Adult Guidelines. April 2015.
44. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
ART and Effects on Lipids
TDF ABCRAL
DTG
ATV/RTV or ATV/COBI
DRV/RTV or DRV/COBI
EVG/COBI
EFVRPV
ETV
45. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
ACTG 5206: TDF Lowers LDL in Pts With
Virologic Suppression
Double-blind pilot study
of alternating TDF and
placebo for 12 wks in
pts (n = 17) with HIV-1
RNA < 400 copies/mL
≥ 90 days on ART 4-wk
washout between
treatment periods
Dyslipidemia: fasting
150-999 mg/dL or non-
HDL 100-249 mg/dL
Primary endpoint:
change in non-HDL
over 12 wks of active
TDF minus the change
over 12 wks of placebo
Median Change in Lipid Parameters
Tungsiripat M, et al. AIDS. 2010;24:1781-1784.
TDF
Placebo
Non HDL
P = .01
TC
P < .01
LDL
P = .06
HDL
P = .91
TG
P = .83
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1.0
-1.2
46. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Lipid Changes From BL to Wk 48 in RCTs
of First-line ART: NNRTI Comparisons
This slide is an illustration only and not meant to be a cross-study comparison.
1. Lennox J, et al. Lancet. 2009;374:796-806. 2. Daar E, et al. Ann Intern Med. 2011;154:445-456..
EFV + TDF/FTC
ATV/RTV + TDF/FTC
P < .001
ACTG 5202[2]
TC LDL HDL TG
MedianChange
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
22
10
40
15
12
21
13
24
10 8
2 5
14
8
13
29
EFV + ABC/3TC
ATV/RTV + ABC/3TC
P < .001
P < .001
P < .001
P < .001
P = .002
21
70
34
13
22
9
-14
184
P < .0001
STARTMRK[1]
TC LDL HDL TG
MeanChange(mg/dL)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
RAL + TDF/FTC
EFV + TDF/FTC
P < .0001
P < .0001
P = .0002
47. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
1516
-8
Lipid Changes From BL to Wk 48 in RCTs
of First-line ART: Boosted PIs vs INSTIs
RAL + TDF/FTC
ATV/RTV + TDF/FTC
DRV/RTV + TDF/FTC
1. Ofotokun I, et al. Clin. Infect. Dis. 2015;60:1842-1851. 2. Quercia R, et al. Clin. Drug Invest. 2015;35:211-219.
This slide is an illustration only and not meant to be a cross-study comparison.
DTG + 2 NRTIs
DRV/RTV + TDF/FTC
ACTG 5257[1]
TC HDL TG
MeanChange(mg/dL)
0
10
20
13
1
15
6
4
-3
66 5
FLAMINGO[2]
TC LDL HDL
MeanCh
0
10
20
4
23
33
-6
14
3 22
30
40
-5
30
TG
LDL
48. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Atazanavir Associated With Slowed IMT
Progression
A5260s: metabolic substudy of ACTG 5257
– 328 ART-naive pts with no CVD randomized to receive ATV/RTV, RAL, or
DRV/RTV (each paired with TDF/FTC)
– Carotid IMT evaluated by B-mode ultrasonography
Stein JH, et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2014;63:2301-2302.
Non-HDL: Mean Change
(95% CI)20
10
0
-10
-20
mg/dL
Study Wk
0 24 48 96
ATV
RAL
DRV
Carotic IMT: Mean Change
(95% CI)50
40
30
20
10
μm
Study Wk
0 48 96 144
ATV
RAL
DRV
0
49. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Lipid Changes From BL to Wk 48 in RCTs
of First-line ART: COBI vs RTV
This slide is an illustration only and not meant to be a cross-study comparison.
1. De Jesus E, et al. Lancet. 2012;379:2429-2438. 2. Gallant JE, et al. J Infect Dis. 2013;208:32-39.
3. Gallant JE, et al. AIDS 2012. Abstract TUAB0103.
10 8
1111
56
8
23
P = .
006
ATV/RTV + TDF/FTC
EVG/COBI/TDF/FTC
Study 103[1]
TC LDL HDL TG
MedianChange(mg/dL)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
5
19 11
11
5
6
19
32
P = .
063
ATV/RTV + TDF/FTC
ATV/COBI + TDF/FTC
Study 114[2,3]
TC LDL HDL TG
MedianChange(mg/dL)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
P = .
081
50. What Is the Role of Statins in
HIV-Infected Pts With CVD?
51. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Randomized Trial of Statin Therapy and
Coronary Plaque Progression
Randomized 12-mo trial in HIV+ pts
on stable ART with LDL < 130 and
≥ 1 coronary plaque
– Atorvastatin 20 mg (↑ to 40 mg at
3 mos) (n = 19) vs
– Placebo (n = 21)
Statin therapy reduced progression
of coronary plaques
– Reduced overall plaque volume,
including lipid-laden plaques
– Reduced high-risk morphology
plaques
Statin therapy safe and well
tolerated
Lo J, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 136.
Plaque Progression in Proximal Left
Anterior Descending Coronary Artery
With Atorvastatin or Placebo
BL
12 mos
PlaceboAtorvastatin
52. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Rosuvastatin Effects on Carotid Intimal
Thickness and Coronary Calcium Score
SATURN-HIV: double-blind, randomized, placebo-
controlled trial of rosuvastatin in HIV-positive pts (N = 147)
Longenecker T, et al. CROI 2015. Abstract 137.
Mean Change in CIMT
Mean Change in CCA in Those
With BL Calcification
Statin Control
P < .05
-4
4
3
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
Statin Control
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
P < .05
MeanCIMTCha
MeanChangei
53. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Factors Contributing to CVD in HIV-
Positive Pts
Traditional Risk
Factors
Traditional Risk
Factors
ART ToxicityART Toxicity CoinfectionCoinfection
CVDCVD
Monocyte and macrophage
activation
Monocyte and macrophage
activation
Chronic inflammationChronic inflammation
Other proinflammatory
and procoagulant pathways
Crowe S. IAS 2014.
54. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Drug–Drug Interactions With First-line
ART and Lipid-Lowering Therapy
Antiretroviral Contraindicated Titrate Dose No Dose Adjustment
EFV Atorvastatin
Simvastatin
Pravastatin
Rosuvastatin
Pitavastatin
RPV Atorvastatin
Pitavastatin
ATV/RTV
ATV/COBI
Lovastatin
Simvastatin
Atorvastatin
Rosuvastatin
Pitavastatin
DRV/RTV
DRV/COBI
Lovastatin
Simvastatin
Atorvastatin
Pravastatin
Rosuvastatin
Pitavastatin
EVG/COBI/TDF/
FTC
Lovastatin
Simvastatin
Atorvastatin
Rosuvastatin
DTG
RAL
DHHS Adult Guidelines. April 2015.
55. clinicaloptions.com/hiv
Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It
Conclusions: Managing CV Risk in HIV Pts
Rates of CVD higher in HIV-infected pts vs general
population
CVD risk can be assessed by considering
– Traditional risk factors
– HIV-related factors
Starting ART early can mitigate CV risk even though
certain ART drugs may increase lipids
Statins have been shown to be effective in reducing CV
risk in pts without HIV infection and should be used as
indicated in HIV-infected pts
56. Go Online for More CCO
Educational Programming on
Cardiovascular Disease
ClinicalThought™ commentaries by expert faculty focusing on the
practical application of new data and guidelines
CME-certified Interactive Virtual Presentation planned and narrated
by expert faculty
clinicaloptions.com/CVDisease
Editor's Notes
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
The title of today’s presentation is Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Patients: Predict It and Prevent It.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
The next slide shows our faculty who are involved. I’m Priscilla Hsue. I’m a Professor of Medicine at UCSF and I’m a cardiologist.
David A. Wohl, MD:
And I’m Dr. David Wohl. I’m an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This slide lists the disclosure information of the faculty involved in the development of these slides.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
I will provide an overview of today’s presentation.
We’ll first start with discussing the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease in the setting of HIV infection. We’ll next then move on to assessing cardiovascular disease risks among HIV-infected individuals. Next, understanding markers pertaining to increased cardiovascular risk, and then finally selecting antiretroviral therapy among HIV-infected individuals with elevated cardiovascular disease risk.
CVD, cardiovascular disease.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
So now let’s move on to the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease in the setting of HIV infection.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease; DM, diabetes mellitus; HTN, hypertension; MI, myocardial infarction.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
We know from Freiberg and colleagues’ study with the Veterans’ Affairs Cohort that HIV infection is associated with a 50% increased risk for acute myocardial infarction even after adjustment for traditional risk factors. This increased risk remained even among those with HIV who were well treated and suppressed. And, interestingly, the impact of HIV on cardiovascular risk was comparable to very strong traditional risk factors, including hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. And, in fact, mechanistic drivers of cardiovascular disease in HIV may include a combination of traditional risk factors, including smoking, along with nontraditional factors, including antiretroviral therapy, chronic inflammation, and HIV infection itself, along with antiretroviral therapy.
CVD, cardiovascular disease; MI, myocardial infarction; PY, person-years.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
On this slide, we discuss a link between HIV and cardiovascular disease. This is a study looking at patients with myocardial infarction treated in the Boston healthcare system showing that rates of acute myocardial infarction were higher in HIV-infected individuals. And you can see here on this diagram that this increased risk of HIV patients compared to uninfected patients, this higher risk was present at different age brackets, including patients who were very young. Other studies have shown that HIV is a risk factor of ischemic stroke. And using different imaging modalities, investigators have shown that HIV-infected men have a higher prevalence of coronary artery plaque.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease; MI, myocardial infarction.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
We’re now having a growing body of evidence to show the link between cardiovascular disease and mortality in the setting of HIV. Depending on the cohort, cardiovascular disease is the second nonleading is the second leading non-HIV cause of death in the US, accounting for 15% of deaths of HIV-infected individuals, and in Europe, it is the third leading non-HIV cause of death. And, in fact, in different cohorts deaths range from 6 to 15%. Interestingly, as HIV-related deaths have decreased, the rate of cardiovascular death has increased. This must be tempered with the fact that the absolute rates of MI and stroke have declined with cardiovascular risk reduction, use of antiretroviral regimens that have better lipid effects, and also improvements in treating immunocompetence. Interestingly, in the United States, a study of ICD-9 codes showed that HIV-infected individuals who were hospitalized for myocardial infarction actually had a higher mortality compared to uninfected individuals, and they were less likely to be referred for procedures, including bypass surgery, angioplasty, and stenting; they were less likely to get antiplatelet-type medications as well.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This slide shows data from the D:A:D study which involved individuals with HIV infection followed up from 1999 until death, loss of follow-up, or 2011. There were similar decreases in death rates over this time period for AIDS-related deaths, deaths from liver disease, and cardiovascular disease deaths; however, non-AIDS cancers increased slightly during this time interval. And after adjustment for factors that changed, including CD4 cell count, there was no decrease in AIDS-related death rate.
So in summary, these recent reductions in rates of AIDS-related death are linked with an improvement in CD4 cell count, and the authors hypothesize that the reduced rates of liver disease and cardiovascular disease deaths over time are likely due to improved use of non-HIV–specific intervention, so, for example, using statins or using aspirin.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease; HTN, hypertension.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This figure shows the evolution of cardiovascular disease along with an aging HIV-infected population. So I think what’s interesting to note is as our HIV population continues to age and as we change how we treat patients with HIV, different cardiovascular issues are emerging. So, for example, if you look on the left-hand side in the 1980s before antiretroviral therapy was developed, a lot of the case reports were reporting things like pericardial effusion and dilated cardiomyopathy. And on the image below, we show a patient with a pericardial effusion. And then in the mid-1990s where antiretroviral therapy and protease inhibitors are developed, that’s when the reports of myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, and pulmonary hypertension were described. And we show here a cardiac catheterization of an HIV patient with significant coronary artery disease. And now in the more contemporary era of HIV when we’re saying that all HIV patients should be on antiretroviral therapy, and in fact patients should initiate this therapy earlier, we’re seeing now reports of kind of a diastolic dysfunction, which is a stiffness of the heart, and also arrhythmic abnormalities, including sudden cardiac death and atrial fibrillation.
PY, person-years; SCD, sudden cardiac death.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
I’d like to elaborate on one of these studies. This is a study reporting higher rates of sudden cardiac death in the setting of HIV infection. This was a study performed at San Francisco General Hospital following HIV-infected individuals between the years of 2000 and 2009. There were a total of 230 deaths during this time period, and interestingly 30 of these, which was 13%, were sudden cardiac death, which is more than 4-fold higher than that of the general population. And, in fact, if you look here on the diagram, on the X axis is years and on the Y axis is mortality. AIDS-related deaths are shown in blue, and those are higher as you would anticipate, but in the red line is sudden cardiac death among our HIV-infected patients. What was interesting is that sudden deaths accounted for the majority of all cardiac deaths, so 30 out of 35 of the HIV-infected individuals. So because sudden cardiac death is our most fatal and dreaded complication from a cardiologist’s point of view, really want to learn more about why this rate of sudden cardiac death is higher in the setting of HIV, and ultimately how do we predict individuals who are at-risk so we can prevent this from happening.
Can’t really eliminate the colors here. We’ll have to adjust the figure
ART, antiretroviral therapy; HTN, hypertension.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This next slide is a schematic of the mechanism of underlying chronic inflammation in the setting of HIV and how this contributes to increased risk for comorbidities for HIV-infected individuals. So at the very top we have untreated HIV infection which contributes by a loss of immunoregulatory cells, impact on HIV replication, and also impact on gut mucosal integrity and microbial translocation. All of those factors then contribute to chronic inflammation, immune activation, impact on coagulation, microbial translocation, and risk of coinfection. These issues then interact with traditional risk factors, including dyslipidemia, cigarette smoking, hypertension, and substance use to result in an increase of comorbidities, including cardiovascular disease and other non-AIDS conditions including neurologic disease, and perhaps advance aging which remains controversial.
ART, antiretroviral therapy.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This next slide shows biomarkers of inflammation which remain elevated even among HIV-infected individuals on antiretroviral therapy. This is a prospective cohort study in which the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study evaluating over 1600 men using stored samples. Biomarkers were then compared among these 3 groups and adjusting for confounders. And the 3 groups included HIV infected, ART naive, and those on ART with a viral load less than 50 copies per mL, and then finally uninfected individuals. So, interestingly, most biomarkers were normalized in the suppressed group relative to the ART-naive group; however, there were 12 biomarkers that were different from negative uninfected individuals. These included markers like C-reactive protein, soluble CD14, TNF-alpha, and others. There were 13 biomarkers that exhibited significant changes in the first year after viral suppression, but then after that time, none of these changed significantly.
CVD, cardiovascular disease; hsCRP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein; IL, interleukin.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This slide shows an analysis of the SMART study, which has been published. And this, as we know, was a study of intermittent ART or drug conservation vs continuous ART or viral suppression as a strategy to reduce different endpoints, including cardiovascular disease. Samples were available and over 5000 participants enrolled in the SMART study. And what we can see here in this diagram are adjusted hazard ratios adjusted for traditional and HIV-specific features. And you can see here comparing different quartiles for biomarkers that IL-6, CRP, and D-dimer were all strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease independent of these other traditional risk factors among HIV-infected individuals.
CVD, cardiovascular disease; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This is a study that was presented at CROI showing that individuals with differing levels of renal dysfunction—as shown here—have a strong progression to cardiovascular disease as assessed by baseline eGFR. You can see individuals have a very low eGFR less than or equal to 30; this is linked to strong progression to CVD in this cohort.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease; eGFR, estimated glomerular filtration rate; IDU, injection drug user; MI, myocardial infarction; MSM, men who have sex with men.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This is data from Drozd and colleagues that was presented at CROI from last year showing that low CD4 count independently predicts myocardial infarctions. And you can see here, the relative risk associated with different CD4 counts. Having a detectable viral load is also associated with a higher risk of myocardial infarction at CD4 counts greater than 350 and greater than 500. And also this study showed that traditional risk factors also are important predictors of myocardial infarction in the setting of HIV. You can see that these models were adjusted for some traditional risk factors as well as HIV features.
CV, cardiovascular.
David A. Wohl, MD:
Let’s look at monitoring and assessing cardiovascular risk in people with HIV.
CIMT, carotid intima-media thickness; CV, cardiovascular; FDG-PET, fludeoxyglucose (18F)-positron emission tomography.
David A. Wohl, MD:
There are different things that we can use to assess CVD risk and understand the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in people with HIV. And the things that we use clinically are different than some of the things that we might use in a research setting. So clinically we know we have a wealth of data from people who don’t have HIV infection—you know, what seems to work and what doesn’t work when trying to assess whether or not a person is at higher risk for getting a heart attack or a stroke. So lipids really are the mainstay; we know that checking cholesterol helps us understand more about a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease than probably any other blood test that’s available right now, and that’s been borne out by decades of research. And there’s no reason that that shouldn’t be operative in people living with HIV. In HIV, we have to build on that.
There are traditional risk factors that, again, are operative in both people without HIV and people with HIV that that are clearly markers of risk. So you know those: Those are smoking, sedentary lifestyle, obesity. These are things that we know play a role in cardiovascular disease risk universally. But in people with HIV, there are HIV-related factors as well. And so for this, we have to think carefully about how does this play in because we don’t have decades of data and we don’t have studies of 30 or 40,000 people like we do in the realm of the general population. But we do know that there are some factors that seem to be related to HIV, whether it be HIV itself, and as we’re learning more and more, there could be things that are happening in response to virus, even the even very low levels of virus, and, intriguingly, maybe even some of our medicines.
On the research side of things, we have a number of different tools, some of which are used in the clinical realm but are not really completely integrated right now into care. But looking at things like coronary at artery calcium score or carotid intimal thickness, or assessing endothelial function, looking at markers of it or assessing it directly, or PET scanning. And some of these blood markers for inflammation, these are probes; these are things that we’re using to understand more how does cardiovascular risk, you know, become meaningful in people with HIV, and for those who do seem to have a risk for cardiovascular disease, what’s the underpinnings? And so, again, I think it’s important that we differentiate between things that we use in the clinical realm and things that you’ll hear about or that you’ll read about that are really research tools. And we’ll try to make that clear as we go along.
ACC/AHA, American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association; ASCVD; atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease; BMI, body mass index; CHD, coronary heart disease; CVD, cardiovascular disease; MI, myocardial infarction.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So looking at some of these risk assessors or calculators, I think it’s important to try to compare them. In the United States, I’d say the Framingham Risk Calculator historically has been the one that’s been most popular. In other parts of the world, especially in Europe, there are some others that are used more commonly, or just as commonly, reflecting the genesis of those calculators. Framingham, of course, comes from the United States so it is more applicable to our population maybe than to in other places in the world. More recently in 2013, we saw the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association come out with their own risk assessor. This one’s a little bit different. It’s a little bit more expansive than the Framingham Risk Calculator, and we’ll talk about that more in detail. The similarities and the differences are nicely demonstrated here where you can see that there are some things that the new calculator is assessing, including race and ethnicity, that Framingham didn’t.
Some of the other things are the same: diabetes, hypertension and therapy for hypertension, and certainly smoking.
ACC/AHA, American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association; ASCVD; atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease; CHD, coronary heart disease; CVD, cardiovascular disease; MI, myocardial infarction; TIA, transient ischemic attack.
David A. Wohl, MD:
Other things that are a little bit different are we get a lifetime assessment, not just a 10-year assessment, in the new calculator compared to Framingham, and even looking at fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular disease. It includes both stroke and heart attack, which I think is really important. So I think the new calculator adds on top of the Framingham. I like it because it’s pretty clear-cut; you enter into the calculator the data that it’s asking for, and it gives you the 10-year risk and the lifetime risk. If it’s a 10-year risk of 7.5% or more, that’s generally going to be an indication for a statin. I think that’s a nice cutoff—it’s pretty clear and it’s defensible.
The other thing that I think is important is to understand who this calculator is appropriate for. The guidelines make it really clear that people without cardiovascular disease who are under 40 who don’t have known heart disease, they’re not really appropriate for this calculator. So this calculator guides you through who’s right for it and who’s not right for it because it’s based upon data from a specific group of people who are most likely to be at risk for cardiovascular disease.
ACC/AHA, American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association; CVD, cardiovascular disease.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So how well does it do? There are some data looking at both the Framingham Risk Calculator and the ACC/AHA cardiovascular risk calculator in people with HIV. What you can see here is that it pretty much underpredicts actual events, which is interesting because some people complained about the new calculator overpredicting events and being more aggressive in recommending statins in the general population or in certain general non-HIV–infected cohorts. I will say the new calculator looked a little bit better than Framingham, again maybe because there’s more inputs and it’s a little bit more specific to the race/ethnicity of patients as well. Again, that just means that we may have to tell our patients your risk calculator is saying your risk is X; this is probably an underestimate and your real risk may even be a little bit more than this, and that may help you in your decision making.
BP, blood pressure CVD, cardiovascular disease.
David A. Wohl, MD:
There’s been some modeling that’s looked at how do you reduce cardiovascular risk in people with HIV? And these are data that come from a modeling study that was done in the European D:A:D cohort. This was a very, very large cohort. There’s some differences between an American cohort and a European cohort, and that’s important, but I think there’s really good take homes here. And it shows that doing things like reducing blood pressure or reducing cholesterol does have an effect. And we know that we reduce cholesterol really mainly by using statins; statins are very effective at reducing cholesterol, and we’ve learned more and more about that and their role for reducing cardiovascular disease in people without HIV.
The biggest effect, of course, is smoking cessation, and dropping down that risk substantially, and that’s not going to be news to anyone who’s ever taken care of people who have cardiovascular disease risk. If you plug into the calculator someone who’s a smoker and then take away the smoking, the risk drops substantially. And that’s a tool I use in clinic. I will show someone the screen that I’m using to calculate their risk, and then I’ll show them what happens if I say, “Well, let’s make believe for a moment that you quit smoking and your risk just went down from 15% to 6%.” That’s a profound drop and that’s the kind of drop you get. So it’s a motivator and we use it.
CAD, coronary artery disease; CV, cardiovascular; MI, myocardial infarction; TIA/CVA; transient ischemic attack/cerebral vascular event.
David A. Wohl, MD:
One of the interventions we talked about was statins, and statins are really important. As we know in general health, they’re some of the most prescribed medications in our country and clearly have had a profound impact on coronary and cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. Aspirin is also important. And there’s some data that indicate that we are getting much, much better at applying statin therapy to HIV-positive patients, but we’re really lagging behind when it comes to aspirin. Part of that may be there’s some controversy in the general population about when to use aspirin. But it is indicated as a secondary prevention method in patients with established coronary artery disease or people who have had TIAs or a CVA. And the dose should be somewhere around 75-162 mg per day. Usually, we use about 81 mg. In some patients, the cardiologist may recommend a higher dose—a full dose of 325 mg. There’s been proven definitive benefit for cardiovascular disease, including MI, stroke, and cardiovascular disease death.
So what about primary prevention though? So using aspirin, let’s say 81 mg a day, for patients at high risk? So the recommendation right now is that patients who are higher risk, those with a 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease, of coronary heart disease of 10% or more, should be indicated for aspirin as long as they don’t have a higher risk of bleeding. So people who have a bleeding disorder or people who’ve had a gastric ulcer and that has bled, those would be indications that would contraindicate for aspirin therapy. The idea, of course, is that in the right patients, this could reduce the risk of first MI. There has not really been good demonstration of reduction and risk of stroke or cardiovascular disease death, and again there’s always this balance between bleeding vs benefit even at 81 mg. So aspirin, HIV and MI—there is a study going on in Boston. The use of aspirin in HIV was not associated with lower rates of MI, but it was—there were limitations and it was a somewhat small study. So I think this is going to have to be looked at in a bigger way in the future.
ACC/AHA, American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association; ASCVD; atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease; CV, cardiovascular.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So overall, I think that it’s important that we assess risk for cardiovascular disease in HIV-positive patients across the spectrum. I think it’s important for us to come to a tool that we can become comfortable with. Again, more and more primary care docs and I think HIV docs are getting used to using the ACC/AHA calculator. It can be done online. On your phone, it can be done through an app. I think it has advantages over the Framingham. Again, it may be a little bit of an underestimate but that’s okay, and I think we can use it to assess our risk in our patients, and we should be applying it now, just based exactly upon what the what the guidelines say for the right patients. You can plug in the numbers and it’ll give you the 10-year risk and the lifetime risk, and that can be very important for your patients.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CV, cardiovascular.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
In the next section, we’ll cover inflammatory markers and also imaging techniques and how they can help us understand the mechanism of HIV and antiretroviral therapy on cardiovascular risk.
CAC, coronary artery calcium; CIMT, carotid intima-media thickness; CT, computed tomography; CTA, CT angiography; CV, cardiovascular; FMD, flow-mediated dilation; hsCRP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein; IL, interleukin; PET, positron emission tomography.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
There are many different inflammatory and coagulation markers, and these include CRP, IL-6, and D-dimer. There’s also different methods to assess and look at cardiovascular risk. These include carotid ultrasound, coronary calcium, CT angiography, assessment of endothelial function using brachial artery reactivity—also known as flow-mediated vasodilation—and assessment of arterial inflammation using FDG-PET/CT.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
Chronic inflammation persists even in the setting of effectively treated and suppressed HIV. Basically, you can choose your marker of choice. And there have been multiple studies to show that treatment of HIV infection lowers this marker, but it does not restore it back to normal. So this has been shown using T-cell activation. Also it’s been demonstrated in the setting of microbial translocation assessed by lipopolysaccharide. This has also been assessed using biomarkers of chronic inflammation as well as coagulation markers such as tissue factor.
ART, antiretroviral therapy.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
And the next slide is a summary of Peter Hunt’s study showing the impact of antiretroviral therapy on T-cell activation, showing that it reduces it in the setting of ART. However, it still remains higher compared to uninfected individuals. In other studies that Peter has also done, he’s shown that a cytomegalovirus seems to drive a lot of these T-cell responses and contribute to some of the immunologic and chronic inflammatory response.
CVD, cardiovascular disease; hsCRP: high-sensitivity C-reactive protein; IL, interleukin; NADM, non-AIDS-defining malignancies; PYFU, patient-years of follow-up.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This is a study showing how different quartiles of plasma IL-6 are correlated with mortality in the SMART and ESPRIT tri studies. So IL-6 is an interleukin that is proinflammatory, and it’s a cytokine as well. So these are the combined studies that reflect over 19,000 person-years of follow-up. The median age of individuals was 42, most were men, and the median CD4 count was 526. You can see the different endpoints that were evaluated, which included all-cause mortality, non-AIDS deaths, progression to AIDS, cardiovascular disease, and non-AIDS–defining malignancies. You can see here that among the different quartiles, plasma baseline IL-6 was a strong predictor of all-cause mortality and many fatal non-AIDS events, and this was more predictive compared to D-dimer and CRP. Adjustment for other confounders attenuated these associations, but the predictive value of IL-6 and cardiovascular disease remains significant.
oxLDL, oxidized low density lipoprotein cholesterol.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This next study summarizes how monocytes may be impacted by HIV to form atheromatous plaque. HIV in conjunction with lipids upregulate adhesion molecules on the endothelium. HIV can also activate monocytes by increasing their expression of key adhesion molecules and thus increasing the migration across the activated endothelia into the intima of the blood vessel. HIV then may play a role in increasing the capacity to scavenge oxidized LDL and become foam cells, which contribute to the developing atherosclerotic plaque.
hsCRP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein; IMT, intima-media thickness.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
One way to assess atherosclerosis noninvasively is to use high-resolution ultrasound to look at intima media thickness (IMT). And there’ve been a lot of studies looking at this in the setting of HIV. Studies have shown that IMT progression occurs preferentially at the carotid bifurcation region and is independently associated with CRP in the setting of HIV. Other studies have shown that adhesion molecules and markers of monocyte activation are associated with carotid IMT in HIV. Dr. Mangili’s study showed that carotid IMT along with CRP were actually independently associated with all-cause mortality in the setting of HIV infection. And, interestingly, the FRAM study showed that the impact of HIV with this subclinical atherosclerosis was similar to that of strong traditional risk factors like smoking.
BL, baseline; IMT, intima-media thickness; RR, relative risk.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
A recent IMT study done in the MACS and WIHS cohort showed that HIV-infected individuals had a higher risk of developing new plaques after adjustment for traditional risk factors and that this increased plaque occurred even among those who were treated and suppressed compared to uninfected individuals. Interestingly, HIV-infected patients who had a CD4 count greater than or equal to 500 had the risk of developing plaque that was not statistically different from those without HIV infection. The diagram on the bottom shows percentage of WIHS per participants with focal carotid artery plaques and then percentage of MACS individuals with focal carotid artery plaque as well.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CT, computed tomography.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This next study shows the utility of using CT angiography in HIV. To clarify, this is not just a coronary calcium scan, this is a more involved scan that is able to look at percent stenoses and also characterize plaque into soft and noncalcified plaque. So in this study, asymptomatic individuals had a higher prevalence and degree of coronary atherosclerosis compared to controls. And among those treated individuals, a marker of macrophage activation, soluble CD163, was significantly higher and also correlated with noncalcified plaque in this study.
FDG-PET, fludeoxyglucose (18F)-positron emission tomography; FRS, Framingham risk score; TBR, target-to-background ratio.
Priscilla Y. Hsue, MD:
This next study shows the utility of assessing vascular inflammation using FDG-PET/CT to look at arterial wall inflammation. This is a study looking at treated HIV-infected individuals compared to uninfected controls. You can see on the diagram that HIV-infected individuals have higher levels of arterial inflammation compared to Framingham-matched controls.
Soluble CD163 is a marker of macrophage activation. And in this study, levels of soluble CD163 were correlated with vascular inflammation using this aortic target to background ratio.
David A. Wohl, MD:
I’m going to talk about role of antiretrovirals in cardiovascular disease.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; MI, myocardial infarction.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So let’s look at some of the data about associations between HIV medications and risk for coronary artery disease or stroke. So D:A:D really put this subject on the map, and that was back in the early 2000s where they came out and showed very nicely that exposure over time to combination HIV therapy—we were really only using pretty much protease inhibitors and NNRTIs at this point when this study was presented—was associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction over time.
Now, importantly, D:A:D doesn’t have a control group. These are all patients with HIV, so there’s no way to say, “Well, what about people without HIV who are in Italy and Spain and the UK and everyone else who contributes to this? What’s their background myocardial infarction rate?” We don’t have that. You have to understand that if you had a control group, there would be some incremental increase in risk of myocardial infarction over time as the cohort gets older, as people are followed. So on top of that, there may be some added risk and that’s what everyone’s trying to understand; what’s the added risk on top of that? But what we saw here is that combination HIV therapy did seem to increase your risk for myocardial infarction over time, and as we learned, the older PIs were really driving this by and large.
ABC, abacavir; ART, antiretroviral therapy; CAD, coronary artery disease; HDL, high density lipoprotein; HTN, hypertension.
David A. Wohl, MD:
We have more data recently from the Magnificent Consortium—again, this is a European cohort, probably overlaps somewhat with the D:A:D cohort. And what’s very interesting here is what you see is that you have traditional risk factors coming into play, so it’s not only just the HIV therapies, but really what trumps a lot of that is the traditional risks that we think about all the time, and that’s on the bottom of the graph. You can see that the odds ratio is much higher for smoking, for being older, for family history—the traditional things that we think about—hypertension, high cholesterol, even past smoking really buries some of these HIV therapy–related factors that are also on this slide. So this is really important.
And there’s things we can change and there’s things we can’t change. We can’t change that our patients are getting older or their family history, but we can manage their diabetes. We can manage their cholesterol and their hypertension. We can try to get them to stop smoking, being aggressive as possible with that. And then there’s the HIV factors, and we’re learning more and more about that, as we said, in trying to mitigate any risk that’s added on by our HIV therapy.
CV, cardiovascular; TB, tuberculosis.
David A. Wohl, MD:
One thing that really is becoming clear is that starting HIV therapy earlier rather than later seems to reduce the risk of cancer and heart attacks and heart disease. So the START trial, which was big, randomized, controlled trial of starting patients on HIV therapy with a CD4 cell count above 500 vs deferring that therapy until the CD4 cell count dropped towards 350.
That study’s ongoing, but in the second quarter of 2015, we saw that the results from a data safety monitoring board review indicated that there was a clear benefit for starting HIV therapy earlier, and a real risk of waiting to start HIV therapy until the until the CD4 cell count was more like 350. And this played out not only in AIDS-related, but non-AIDS–related events, both fatal and nonfatal events.
This was really a remarkable result, given that the population that was enrolled in this very large study was generally very healthy. Their median viral load at entry was about 13,000, so there seemed to be some selection for people who would probably not have endpoints, for people who are relatively well and healthy. And even with that, we see here that there was a clear demonstrable benefit in infectious disease terms and noninfectious disease terms, including cardiovascular disease, of starting therapy earlier. So whatever we might talk about with some risk from D:A:D of one drug vs another or one class vs another, overall starting ART earlier before CD4 depletion is good for your heart. And so the benefits of ART clearly outweigh any risks that are associated with ART vis-à-vis lipids or other mechanisms.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CV, cardiovascular; CVD, cardiovascular disease.
David A. Wohl, MD:
We already knew a little bit about this from the SMART study. In that trial, patients who are mostly on HIV therapy at entry were randomized to stop their therapy or continue on their therapy, the hypothesis being that continuing on your HIV therapy would be detrimental, that you would have toxicity, including cardiovascular toxicity, from your medications. It turned out stopping HIV therapy was much worse than staying on your HIV therapy, including for end-organ disease like cardiovascular disease. Both of these studies, the START study and the SMART study, these are studies that the randomization assignment was stopped early because of an early difference. So both studies show clearly demonstrable benefits of continuing on ART—starting it early and staying on it.
ABC, abacavir; CC, case-control; CV, cardiovascular; CVD, cardiovascular disease; MI, myocardial infarction; RCT, randomized controlled trial; TDF, tenofovir.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So what are the data? Well, it’s really, really complicated and here’s the list of those that show an association between abacavir and risk of MI. Some of these are in the context of a smaller, randomized controlled trial, some of these are in large cohorts like the D:A:D cohort or the VA cohort or the Swiss cohort, NA-ACCORD cohort. You can see them here and you can see the risk of an MI is basically we’re talking in in the realm of one and a half to 2-fold.
ABC, abacavir; CC, case-control; CV, cardiovascular; MI, myocardial infarction; RCT, randomized controlled trial; TDF, tenofovir.
David A. Wohl, MD:
On this next slide, we see that are some studies that don’t show a risk—there’s not as many—but some of these are pretty powerful as well. So I think it’s really, really confusing and I don’t think that we’re going to have a definitive answer anytime soon. We don’t have a signature pathogenic mechanism that explains this; we don’t know for sure that there’s anything that abacavir is doing to platelets or doing to inflammatory markers, so that makes it a little bit more confusing too. So, again, I don’t think you’re going to get a definitive answer from this module. I don’t think we’re going to be able to answer the question for you.
ABC, abacavir; ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease; DHHS, US Department of Health and Human Services; LPV, lopinavir; RTV, ritonavir.
David A. Wohl, MD:
In general, when we look at the guidelines and what they have to say about selecting an initial ART regimen, we know that the overarching goal is to achieve sustained virologic control. The worst thing for a person’s cardiovascular system is uncontrolled viremia with HIV. We know that from the START study and we know that from the SMART study. So continuous viral replication, immune activation, all the bad humors that are elicited by having this virus, that’s not good for your organs, including your heart, including your brain, including your cardiovascular system. So we know that. So the number 1 thing: Drop that viral load and keep it suppressed.
Now when we’re choosing among ART, as we said, there could be some different flavors that would help us understand, well, you know, does one lead to a higher risk for lipid abnormalities that I’d have to act on? Or is one, like abacavir, associated in a big question mark with cardiovascular disease? I think incorporating thinking about cardiovascular risk into our decision making for ART is what we’re doing and it makes a lot of sense. Just like we do the same thing for renal disease or bone health, we think about these things as well in the big picture as we’re trying to determine what’s best for our patient.
ABC, abacavir; ART, antiretroviral therapy; COBI, cobicistat; DRV, darunavir; DTG, dolutegravir; EFV, efavirenz; ETV, etravirine; EVG, elvitegravir; RAL, raltegravir; RTV, ritonavir.
David A. Wohl, MD:
When we look across the spectrum of HIV therapies and their effects on lipids, we can see that it ranges quite a bit. So on the one hand, we have TDF which pretty much not only doesn’t have much effect on lipids, but in one study from the ACTG, looks like it actually has lowering effect. And there’s other studies that show this, too, but really definitively nicely adding on TDF can drop your LDL levels.
Across the spectrum, we can see that we get through integrase that probably is pretty benign as far as lipids; the NNRTIs which do have effects on lipids, especially efavirenz; the newer NNRTIs, not as much. Abacavir, and I don’t think this is what’s playing into this effect on MI, but we do know that abacavir does increase lipids a little bit—LDL and even triglycerides. And then when you start getting to boosting with cobicistat or ritonavir is where you see the biggest effects, and we know that both triglycerides and LDL cholesterol can go up. The HDL question’s a little bit different. We know that most of these effective regimens will raise HDL, especially the NNRTIs, but even the boosted PIs will raise HDLs a little bit.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; HDL, high density lipoprotein; LDL, low density lipoprotein; TC, total cholesterol; TDF, tenofovir; TG, triglycerides.
David A. Wohl, MD:
Here are the data that I mentioned before from the ACTG study showing that TDF does lower LDL cholesterol in patients who are virologically suppressed. You can see nicely the drops in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol with minimal effects on HDL.
3TC, lamivudine; ABC, abacavir; ART, antiretroviral therapy; ATV, atazanavir; BL, baseline; EFV, efavirenz; FTC, emtricitabine; HDL, high density lipoprotein; LDL, low density lipoprotein; RCT, randomized controlled trial; RTV, ritonavir; TC, total cholesterol; TDF, tenofovir; TG, triglycerides.
David A. Wohl, MD:
Looking at other data, so here we see from the STARTMRK study looking at raltegravir vs efavirenz, both with TDF/FTC, efavirenz, more profound changes in total LDL and even HDL cholesterol and triglycerides, whereas the raltegravir had less of an effect. And then ACTG 5202, here a nice comparison, boosted protease inhibitor with atazanavir and efavirenz as the comparator. This is looking at nucleosides, TDF/FTC or abacavir/3TC. Again, you can see a little bit of an abacavir effect if you look closely here, much more so than the TDF/FTC. And there were differences a little bit between the efavirenz and the boosted PI. But for a long time, people thought that efavirenz was kinder and gentler to lipids and we’ve learned that that’s not the case; it does act a lot like a boosted PI.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; ATV, atazanavir; BL, baseline; DRV, darunavir; FTC, emtricitabine; HDL, high density lipoprotein; LDL, low density lipoprotein; RAL, raltegravir; RCT, randomized controlled trial; RTV, ritonavir; TC, total cholesterol; TDF, tenofovir; TG, triglycerides.
David A. Wohl, MD:
More recent data—so we have another AIDS Clinical Trials Groups study, 5257, that shows really nicely boosted PI with atazanavir vs raltegravir vs darunavir/ritonavir, and some important differences. We can see again the integrase inhibitor having less of an effect on total and LDL cholesterol. HDL responded pretty equally across the 3 arms. Triglycerides higher with the booster, right, with the ritonavir-boosted PIs. Not seeing much, in fact a little bit of a decrease, with the integrase inhibitors. So we know integrase inhibitors are kinder and gentler.
FLAMINGO study looking at dolutegravir, just to look at a different integrase inhibitor, vs a boosted PI; again, very similar pattern that we saw with raltegravir where the integrase hardly does anything to the lipids, whereas the boosted PI does.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; ATV, atazanavir; CVD, cardiovascular disease; DRV, darunavir; FTC, emtricitabine; HDL, high density lipoprotein; IMT, intima-media thickness; RAL, raltegravir; RTV, ritonavir; TDF, tenofovir.
David A. Wohl, MD:
Some interesting data that we also got from one of the studies that I showed you, which was that ACTG 5257—that’s the one that compared boosted atazanavir with boosted darunavir vs raltegravir. And one curious finding in a substudy was that when you looked at carotid intimal thickness—so this is looking at the carotid artery and looking at the thickness of the mediae, and that’s been associated with cardiovascular disease. Interestingly enough, we saw that of the 3 arms, there was less CIMT gain in patients who were randomized to atazanavir/ritonavir. The reason for this is not really clear. Remember, atazanavir increases bilirubin and people with Gilbert’s disease may also have some protective features from their hyperbilirubinemia that protects them from cardiovascular disease; that may be operative here. It’s a curious finding. I’m not sure what to make of it clinically and I would like to see it replicated. As we know, atazanavir is not one of the medications that are listed or regimens listed by the Department of Health and Human Services as a preferred initial regimen.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; ATV, atazanavir; BL, baseline; COBI, cobicistat; EVG, elvitegravir; FTC, emtricitabine; HDL, high density lipoprotein; LDL, low density lipoprotein; RCT, randomized controlled trial; RTV, ritonavir; TC, total cholesterol; TDF, tenofovir; TG, triglycerides.
David A. Wohl, MD:
We also know that COBI doesn’t offer us much of an advantage compared to ritonavir based upon a head-to-head study of looking at COBI vs ritonavir. And you can see that on the right side, the study 114. On the left side, you can see a boosted atazanavir vs elvitegravir and COBI. And, again, pretty similar lipids, maybe a little bit better triglycerides with the integrase vs the PI. But when you compare the two, you know, again, not profound changes on LDL or HDL differences.
CVD, cardiovascular disease.
So let’s look now at the role of statins in HIV-infected patients with cardiovascular disease.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; BL, baseline; LDL, low density lipoprotein.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So we have some data here. Again, in the realm of HIV, we’re looking at pretty small studies, but they’re intriguing. So this is not to say that this is why you should do something. It’s just saying here’s what we’re figuring out; here’s what we’re understanding about the effects of this really potent, interesting class of medications on people with HIV.
So one of the studies that were just presented not long ago in early 2015 was a randomized trial of HIV-positive people; these are all people who are on stable ART and had a low LDL, or at least less than 130, but known coronary plaque. So these people who already we knew had coronary artery disease. And they were randomized to atorvastatin 20 mg—and this was increased over time—vs placebo; small study, this was just a pilot probe study, about 20 people in each arm.
Remarkably, I think, statin therapy was shown to reduce the progression of the plaque, so it reduced the overall plaque volume including the lipid-laden part of the plaque, and it reduced the higher-risk morphology, the more vulnerable plaque. And it was pretty profound. In the arm that didn’t get the statin but had placebo, there was actual progression of the plaque. So there’s a story emerging, as I’ll show you in a second, that maybe what statins are doing in people with HIV is helping those who already have some coronary artery disease stabilize this, if not have some regression vs the progression that’s happening in the control arms of these studies.
CAC, coronary artery calcium; CCA, common carotid artery; CIMT, carotid intima-media thickness.
David A. Wohl, MD:
Another study with a similar sort of picture is this study of statins in people with HIV called the SATURN-HIV study. This looks at rosuvastatin. And here what we’re looking at is not only coronary calcium score but also that carotid intimal thickness. And what you’ll see on the left-hand side is a significant difference in the mean change in this CIMT, this carotid intimal thickness, in patients who were randomized to get the rosuvastatin—in this case about 75 patients—vs the control arm of an equal number who got placebo. And while the differences aren’t profound on the graph, they are significant comparing the statin to control group where we saw worsening in the control group and stabilization in the statin group.
When you look at people who had underlying coronary disease based upon coronary calcium score, we see again the statin led to some stabilization and lack of progression, where the controls experienced some progression. If you look at people who didn’t have any baseline coronary calcium score, who their score was 0, we didn’t see any benefit of the statin. So, again, a story of maybe this helps mitigate progression of coronary artery disease. More will come out of this; these are small studies. There’s a very large ACTG study looking at a statin and seeing how it affects clinical outcomes in addition to some of these markers. It’s going to be huge: 5000-6000 patients long term that will, I think, definitely answer the question.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CVD, cardiovascular disease.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So, you know, there’s many things that are playing into this. And we saw this before when we talked about sort of the framework and what are the factors that are contributing to cardiovascular disease—everything from immune activation to microbial translocation to the microbiome. And we know that there is viral factors, there’s these traditional risk factors, maybe something going on with ART. We didn’t talk about it a lot, but maybe coinfection with things like CMV. But there’s monocyte activation; there’s this proinflammatory pathway that is operative probably in some of our patients. I don’t think all of our folks are living with chronic inflammation but some of them are, and there might be a phenotype that leads to cardiovascular disease. But the problem is these boxes all look like the same size, and we don’t know that, one is not bigger than the other; that the ART box for argument’s sake might be really tiny and the traditional risk factor box should be really big. These are not size proportional, and I think that they’re not all operative in all patients, and I don’t think all patients are living in an inflammatory storm. What we have to figure out is which patients are, and which of these boxes are most important in our patients who are living with HIV long term.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; ATV, atazanavir; COBI, cobicistat; DRV, darunavir; DTG, dolutegravir; EVG, elvitegravir; FTC, emtricitabine; RAL, raltegravir; RTV, ritonavir; TDF, tenofovir.
David A. Wohl, MD:
I do think it’s important—we’ve talked a lot about statins—to just recognize that there are drug–drug interactions. This is not that complicated. If you understand what ART does to liver metabolism, you understand this. So we know that the NNRTIs are inducers, right, so they induce metabolism of different drugs. That means that if you give someone a statin, you’re probably going to get less of an effect because it’s going to be metabolized. So we often have to jump the dose up of the statin in order to get the effect we want.
Now the contrast is true for, you know, ritonavir and cobicistat, right? These block metabolism, that’s how they work as pharmacological boosters. In that way, if you give a statin you’re going to get a much higher dose. And there are some differences between statins. So like simvastatin and lovastatin, you get much higher levels, dangerous levels. That’s why we tend to use pitavastatin or rosuvastatin or atorvastatin because those are safer, and there’s a much better safety window for those drugs regardless of which ART you’re using.
For the integrase inhibitors that are not boosted, so dolutegravir and raltegravir, no interaction at all, safe to use. So really not complicated if you think about inducers of metabolism, of blockers of metabolism, and those that don’t have much effect at all on liver metabolism.
ART, antiretroviral therapy; CV, cardiovascular; CVD, cardiovascular disease.
David A. Wohl, MD:
So in conclusion, I think it’s really clear that people with HIV have higher rates of cardiovascular disease—no argument there; they do compared to the general population. The question is why, and I think it has a lot to do with a lot of different things that we spoke about. Maybe there’s some HIV factors. I don’t think ART factors are really operative here; they’re not a driving force. I’m not so sure that there’s residual inflammation. I think it’s largely going to be traditional risk factors; those that we know about and maybe even some of those that are more subtle, such as depression, such as stress, such as discrimination; there’s lots of things that we’re exploring.
Cardiovascular disease can be assessed by considering those traditional risk factors that we know about, right, so smoking, sedentary lifestyle, those types of things, and even HIV-related factors. So thinking hard about what are the effects of medicines on lipids particularly, and then the abacavir question which is sort of an outlier.
Starting ART early mitigates cardiovascular risk—we know that now even though certain drugs may increase lipids. Even regardless of that effect, we see that ART started earlier is better for your heart. Statins are important; they’ve been shown to be effective in reducing cardiovascular risk in patients without HIV. They should be used just as indicated in people with HIV. We’re exploring more about sort of the salutatory effects of statins as an antiinflammatory and thinking about how that will fit in, but right now I use statins basically like I do in patients who don’t have HIV, and I would follow the guidelines and use the same indications.
So hopefully that presents a bigger picture of what’s going on—helps, you know, take all these disparate data help you make decisions that are effective for your patients to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease over time.