Incidence Rate and Risk Factors for Contralateral Eye Involvement among Patients with AIDS and Cytomegalovirus Retinitis Treated with Local Therapy

The value and implementation of routine ophthalmic examination in the era of HAART

BACKGROUND

The high prevalence of ocular manifestations (OMs) in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and chronic diseases such as diabetes has become a global health issue. However, there is still a lack of an appropriate ophthalmic diagnostic procedure for the early detection of OMs in this population, leading to the risk of an irreversible visual impairment that substantially affects the quality of life of these patients.

METHODS

The Guangzhou HIV Infection Study was a retrospective study that enrolled hospitalised HIV-infected patients in Guangzhou between January 2005 and December 2016, period corresponding to the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) era in China. We collected data on OMs, systemic diseases, hospitalisation, and demographic characteristics. We classified the patients into 3 groups according to the ophthalmic examination mode they underwent: the non-ophthalmologist examination group (patients hospitalised in 2005-2011 who were only treated by infectious disease physicians), the on-demand ophthalmic examination group (patients hospitalised in 2012-2013 who were referred for a consultation with an ophthalmologist), and the routine ophthalmic examination group (patients hospitalised in 2014-2016 who routinely underwent standard ophthalmic examinations). Binary logistic regression models were used to investigate the factors related to OMs.

FINDINGS

A total of 8,743 hospitalised HIV-infected patients were enrolled. The prevalence of detected OMs were 1.5% in the non-ophthalmologist examination group, 1.9% in the on-demand ophthalmic examination group, and 12.8% in the routine ophthalmic examination group. The odds of detection of OMs were highest in the routine ophthalmic examination group (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=9.24, [95%CI, 6.51-13.12], compared to the non-ophthalmologist examination group). The detection of all types of OMs increased substantially, with keratitis, retinitis and vascular abnormalities increased the most (by 15.8-20.0 times). In the routine examination group, patients who were older than 50 years, males, with medical insurance, and were not resident in Guangzhou, had higher odds to have OMs. Several systemic diseases also increased the odds of OMs, with the highest odds among patients with a cytomegalovirus infection (aOR=5.59, [95%CI, 4.12-7.59]). Patients with retinitis, retinopathy and conjunctivitis had higher odds of having a CD4⁺ T cell counts less than 200 cells/μL compared to the patients that did not have these referred OMs.

INTERPRETATION

The implementation of a routine ophthalmic examination has improved the odds of OM detection by approximately 9 times and increased the diagnosis rates of all types of OMs. Therefore, we encourage all HIV-infected patients to undergo regular ophthalmic examinations. Patients with OMs, especially retinopathy and retinitis, need to be evaluated for immune function (such as CD4⁺ T cell counts) and systemic diseases.

Congenital human cytomegalovirus infection and neurologic diseases in newborns

Objective:

This review aimed to summarize research progress regarding congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection-related nervous system diseases and their mechanisms.

Data sources:

All literature quoted in this review was retrieved from PubMed and Web of Science using the keywords “Cytomegalovirus” and “Neurologic disease” in English. To identify more important information, we did not set time limits.

Study selection:

Relevant articles were selected by carefully reading the titles and abstracts. Then, different diagnosis and clinical treatment methods for human CMV infection-related neurologic diseases were compared, and the main mechanism and pathogenesis of neurologic damage caused by CMV were summarized from the selected published articles.

Results:

cCMV infection is a major cause of neonatal malformation. cCMV can infect the fetal encephalon during early gestation and compromise neurodevelopment, resulting in varying degrees of neurologic damage, mainly including hearing impairment, central nervous system (CNS) infection, neurodevelopmental disorders, ophthalmic complications, cerebral neoplasms, infantile autism, epilepsy, and other neurologic abnormalities.

Conclusions:

cCMV infection-induced neurodevelopmental abnormalities, which were directly caused by fetal encephalon infection, thus inducing neuroimmune responses to damage nerve cells. Such abnormalities were also caused by suppression of the proliferation and differentiation of neural progenitor cells by CMV's gene products. cCMV infection in the fetal encephalon can also inhibit neuronal migration and synapse formation and indirectly trigger placental inflammation and thus disrupt the oxygen supply to the fetus.

Incidence Rates and Risk Factors for Vision Loss among AIDS-Related Cytomegalovirus Retinitis Patients in Southern Thailand

PURPOSE

To describe the incidence of and risk factors for visual acuity (VA) loss in patients with AIDS and cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis.

METHODS

A total of 132 patients were included. The main outcome measurements were the incidences of VA loss to ≤20/50 and ≤20/200.

RESULTS

The incidences of VA loss to ≤20/50 and ≤20/200 were 0.22/eye-year (EY) and 0.12/EY, respectively. Risk factors for the incidence of VA loss to ≤20/50 were low nadir CD4⁺ T-cell count (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 3.1), large area of retinitis (aHR, 3.7), and no immune recovery (IR) (aHR, 13.9). Risk factors for the incidence of VA loss to ≤20/200 were not receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) (aHR, 4.4) and large retinitis area (aHR, 2.1).

CONCLUSIONS

The incidence of VA loss in eyes affected by CMV retinitis was high. The use of HAART, particularly with subsequent immune recovery, substantially reduced the incidence of VA loss.