Most Americans And Canadians With HIV Diagnosed Too Late

Most Americans And Canadians With HIV Diagnosed Too Late.
Americans and Canadians infected with HIV are not getting diagnosed fast enough after exposure, resulting in a potentially toxic stoppage in lifesaving treatment, a new large study suggests. The observation stems from an scrutiny involving nearly 45000 HIV-positive patients in both countries, which focused on a key yardstick for protected system strength - CD4 cell counts - at the time each patient first place began treatment. CD4 counts measure the number of "helper" T-cells that are HIV's preferred target.

Reviewing the participants' medical records between 1997 and 2007, the span found that throughout the 10-year study period, the norm CD4 count at the time of first treatment was below the recommended level that scientists have yearn identified as the ideal starting point for medical care. "The public health implications of our findings are clear," over author Dr Richard Moore, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a information release. "Delayed diagnosis reduces survival, and individuals enter into HIV meticulousness with lower CD4 counts than the guidelines for initiating antiretroviral therapy". A suspend in getting treatment not only increases the chance that the disease will progress, but boosts the risk of transmission.

Despite the deed that the average CD4 count at time of first presentation to care had risen over the practice of the decade from 256 to 317, the researchers noted that even the high point was still below the treatment threshold of 350. Moore and his tandem also found that the average age at which patients had first sought care for HIV had risen over the ten-year period, from 40 to 43.

Writing in an essay that accompanied the study, Dr Cynthia Gay of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill expressed touch over the findings. "These findings display that despite such compelling data, there is much room for improving our ability to link more HIV-infected individuals with true treatment prior to immunological deterioration," she said in a news release hghup.club. Moore and his colleagues narrative their findings in the June 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.