HBV and neurological impairment in HIV‐infected patients

Abstract

Objective: HIV can affect CNS in early stages of disease and determine neurological impairment. HBV DNA was found in CSF of HIV co-infected patients, but little is known about the neurotropic character of this virus. Here we assessed the degree of association between HBV infection and neurological impairment in a large cohort of long-term survivors, HIV-infected patients that experienced multiple therapeutic schemes over time. Methods: A total of 462 HIV-1-infected patients were retrospectively followed up for 10 years for HBV infection and neurological impairment. The patients were tested for immune (flow cytometry) and virological parameters of HIV infection (Roche Amplicor, version 1.5/ COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 test) and for HBV infection markers (HBsAg, anti HBc: Murex Biotech ELISA tests). Many of these patients have experienced between one and six regimens such as: 2 NRTIs, 3 NRTIs, 2 NRTIs+1 NNRTI, 1 NRTI+1 NNRTI+1 PI, 2 NRTIs+2 PIs. Results: After 10 years 29.87% of the patients presented neurological impairment. Out of them 56.52% were HBV-infected. The prevalence of HIV encephalopathy (HE) in our studied cohort was 22.7% and 50.4% of these patients were HBV-infected. The median HIV diagnosis age was 7 and the median age of HE diagnosis was 10. In order to establish a possible correlation between HBV infection and HE we first reviewed and excluded the main risk factors associated with HE at the moment of diagnosis: low weight, anemia, constitutional symptoms, low CD4+count, high plasma HIV-RNA load. No patient was infected with HCV. The groups of patients that presented HE and HBsAg and HE without HBsAg were balanced regarding sex, number of deceased patients, number of class C3 patients, but the patients in first group presented lower CD4 values at HE diagnosis vs patients from second group 2: 44.5 vs 95 cells/µL, p=0.3; lower nadir CD4 count: 38 vs 51 cell/µL, p=0.1; and slightly higher HIV viral load: 5.2 vs 5 log10 copies/mL, p = 0.2. There were only 53 patients that presented at the same time HE and HBV infection and the majority, 78.69%, were first infected with HBV. Conclusions: In our studied cohort HBV infection was associated with HE but further studies are needed to prove HBV neurotropic potential. Absolute CD4 nadir count and class C3 are proved to be strong predictors of HE in HIV-infected patients even after several changes in antiretroviral therapy schemes.