Brief Report: Retinal Microvasculature and Immune Restoration Among South Eastern Asian Patients With HIV/AIDS Over a...

Longitudinal evidence on retinal microvasculature and subsequent systemic inflammatory alteration is lacking. We investigated the association between retinal microvasculature and immune response among patients with HIV/AIDS over a 9-month antiretroviral therapy.

We conducted a prospective cohort study on patients with HIV/AIDS at Singapore Communicable Disease Centre since June 2011. We recruited all eligible patients and then reviewed them every 3 months over a 9-month follow-up, including performing blood tests (CD4+/CD8+ T-cell counts and HIV viral load), blood pressure, anthropometry measurements, and retinal photography at each visit. We assessed retinal vascular indexes using a semiautomated computer-based program. Finally, we applied a linear mixed model to analyze associations between baseline retinal vascular indexes and 9-month changes of CD4+/CD8+ T-cell counts and HIV viral load throughout study observation, after adjusting for major confounders.

We found that narrower arteriolar caliber (per 10 μm decrease), wider venular caliber (per 10 μm increase), and larger arteriolar branching angle (per 10° increase) in the retina assessed at baseline were significantly associated with 9-month reductions in CD4+ T-cell count by 52.97 cells/μL (P = 0.006), 33.55 cells/μL (P = 0.01), and 39.09 cells/μL (P = 0.008), accordingly.

Patients with HIV/AIDS with a suboptimal retinal microvascular morphology tended to fail immune restoration undertaking a 9-month antiretroviral therapy.