Abstract
Low-energy fractures complications are a major public health issue that make osteoporosis even worse. In sub-Saharan Africa, the prevalence of osteoporosis varies from 18.2% to 65.8%. There was no change in bone mineral density between HIV-infected and non-HIV-infected women in Sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV is widespread. Other investigations that demonstrated that HIV-infected people had poor BMD both before and after starting anti-retroviral treatment did not consistently show a low BMD finding. Inflammation-mediated bone remodelling has been associated with low BMD in HIV-infected patients. Antiretroviral Therapy has been demonstrated to exacerbate bone loss in addition to the pre-existing intrinsic risk of developing osteoporosis.
Question: Is there loss of bone in HIV-infected patients before initiating ART?
The patients who were HIV-positive and enrolled in the ADVANCE research were retrospectively reviewed on a desk. All of the 1053 individuals in the ADVANCE research had a DXA scan performed to evaluate BMD as part of the initial screening and recruitment approach. The ADVANCE research enrolled HIV-positive people and randomly assigned them to three ART arms.
A total of 400 patients were reviewed. Of these 400 records reviewed, 62.3% were female. 80% of the participants were younger than 40 years old, and 3% were older than 50 years. 82% were virally suppressed with less than 50 viral copies. The prevalence of osteopenia was 25.5% and osteoporosis was 2.8%, observed in predominantly African female participants aged between 30 and 39 years.
The findings of this study confirm that there is pre-existing bone loss among HIV-infected ART naïve individuals. Approximately 28.3% in our study had clinically confirmed evidence of bone loss and of these, 2.8% of the entire cohort had osteoporosis. Bone loss was most prevalent in black females who are virologically suppressed.
