Investigation of the Association between Complete Blood Cell and HIV Progression to AIDS in the Historical Cohort Setting: Using Generalized Estimating Equations Approach

Background: AIDS is a disease caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that affects patient s immune system. According to the statistics released by the United Nations (UN) in 2013, there were 35.3 million AIDS patients in 2012 that 2. 3 million patients were affected in the same year. This study performed to investigate cell blood count and other factors that affect progression of HIV infection to AIDS. Methods: In our study, the data were obtained from documented information in the patient s records. For statistical analysis, at first, one-way repeated measures ANOVA was used for univariate analysis and then Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) was applied for multivariate analysis. Results: Some variables such as higher Hemoglobin (HGB) level, female gender, not receiving Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) and HIV infection via injection and sex were found to be the risk factors for conversion of HIV to AIDS. On the other hand, some variables such as receiving prophylactic Tuberculosis (TB) and asymptomatic HIV at diagnosis could play a protective role in HIV patients and decelerated the disease progression. Conclusions: The findings of the present study indicated that HIV patients variables such as higher HGB levels, female gender, untreated with HAART and morbidity throw injection could accelerate the conversion of HIV infection to AIDS stage. In other words, patients with these characteristics have a worse prognosis than others. As a result, required at the time of diagnosis and follow-up of patients, people with this characteristic take surveillance and treatment with more seriousness.

کلیدواژه ها:

HIV ، AIDS ، Progression ، Conversion ، CD4 ، CBC ، GEE