HIV Complications

Studies in adults have shown that people with HIV may age faster than individuals without HIV. We wanted to know if this was true for young adults born with or exposed to HIV. One way to measure this faster aging is to look epigenetic aging and compare it to their actual age. 

As youth living with HIV get older, they may have poor control of their HIV (higher viral loads and lower CD4 count). We wanted to know if teens and young adults born with HIV in the U.S. had more medical problems as they got older. Studying this can help us find ways to help them stay healthy.

Women living with HIV may have a high risk of getting cervical cancers associated with the Human papillomavirus (HPV). Some vaccines such as the measles vaccine don’t seem to work as well in people living with HIV. We wanted to understand if there are ways to make the vaccine work better.

In this study, we looked at how often children born with HIV have virus that is resistant to certain antiretroviral medications. We also looked for risk factors and warning signs that someone might be more likely to develop resistant virus. 

Liver disease in people with HIV can be due to many factors, including the HIV virus. Typically, we find liver disease by removing a small piece of the liver and examining it. This process is called a liver biopsy, and it can be uncomfortable and can lead to other problems, such as bleeding and infection. Some blood tests in adults have been used to tell if they may have liver disease without needing to have a liver biopsy. We wanted to study how useful these blood tests might be in teens and young adults living with HIV.

Most children with HIV are treated with combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). cART treatment failure can happen when the HIV medications are not controlling the virus well enough. We wanted to see how children who failed treatment were taken care of and how they responded to treatment.

Some children with HIV may not make enough antibodies after they are vaccinated against chickenpox. In this study, we looked at factors that help children with HIV make long-lasting antibodies so that they stay protected against chickenpox. 

Some youth born with HIV may have tried many different HIV drugs during their lives and have few options left for treatment. In this study, we looked at the number of youth with a type of HIV that is resistant to a new medication that has been developed. 

Mitochondria are sometimes called the “batteries of the cells.” The drugs used to treat HIV can affect the way the mitochondria make energy. Fatty acid oxidation (FAO) is the process the body uses to turn fat into energy in the mitochondria. We wanted to see if HIV drugs affect FAO in uninfected babies born to mothers living with HIV.

In this study, we looked at infected and uninfected youth born to mothers with HIV.  We looked at blood samples to see whether youth with HIV who had the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine when they were babies, before they started antiretroviral therapy (ART), were still protected against MMR.

Please note that this abstract was presented at the 4th International Workshop On HIV Pediatrics in Washington, DC on July 20-21, 2012.

In this study, we looked at infected youth born to mothers with HIV and their patterns of HIV treatment over time. We studied how these medications affected the severity of their HIV illness.

In this study, we looked at infected youth born to mothers with HIV who stopped taking their HIV medicines to measure the status of  their HIV illness.  We described the characteristics of youth that stopped taking their medicines yet seemed to remain well.

Please note that this abstract was presented at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in Montreal, Canada on February 8-11, 2009.

In this study, we looked at youth in PHACS to see how many left the study early. We looked at the age and reasons that youth left the study to help us understand why they left.

Please note that this abstract was presented at the 16th International Workshop on HIV Observational Databases in Athens, Greece on March 29-31.

2012

In this study, we measured the amount of blood sugar and insulin (a hormone) in infected youth born to mothers with HIV. We divided youth into two groups based on how much insulin their bodies made to see if there were differences between the groupsand to see whether having HIV affects how the body makes insulin.