HIV and proteinuria in an injection drug user population

Proteinuria is a major determinant of chronic kidney disease. We aimed to characterize the prevalence and correlates of proteinuria in a cohort of HIV-infected and uninfected injection drug users.

A cross-sectional analysis was performed among 902 injection drug users (273 HIV-infected) in the AIDS Linked to the Intravenous Experience cohort. The primary outcome was proteinuria defined as having a urine protein/creatinine concentration ratio >200 mg/g. Poisson regression with robust variance was used to determine prevalence ratios.

Overall, 24.8% of participants had proteinuria; the prevalence was 2.9 times higher among HIV-infected participants (45%) compared with HIV-uninfected participants (16%). In addition, age, health insurance, employment status, hepatitis B and C serostatus, diabetes, and high BP were associated with proteinuria. Neither antiretroviral therapy nor features of illicit drug use history were associated with proteinuria. In multivariate analysis, HIV infection, unemployment, increased age, diabetes, hepatitis C infection, and high BP were significantly associated with a higher prevalence of proteinuria.

In an aging, predominantly African-American cohort of injection drug users, we found a striking burden of proteinuria that was strongly associated with HIV status. In addition to being a pathway to ESRD, proteinuria is a potent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Evaluation of aggressive screening and disease-modification strategies in this high-risk population is warranted.