Impact of Tuberculosis Co-Infection on the Level of PCV in HIV Infected Patients.

Abstract

Background: It has been documented that HIV causes anemia in HIV infected patients. One of the commonest opportunistic infection in HIV patients is TB, and this has also been documented to cause anemia. In Nigeria, several cases of HIV and TB co-infections have been diagnosed. This study was carried out to determine any possible impact of TB co-infection on the level of HIV induced anemia.
Methods: Anemia in this study was defined as PCV values below 30%. Three categories of subjects were recruited: 22 patients who had HIV infection only, 12 with HIV and co-infected with TB and 29 who are infected with TB only. A group of 10 apparently healthy subjects who were negative for HIV and TB were used as controls. These subjects were recruited from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), the Main land Hospital Yaba and the staff clinic of the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research all in Lagos, Nigeria . Blood samples were obtained from each of the enrolled subjects and the PCV levels were determined by the microhaematocrit method. All patients with TB diagnosis were sputum positive for AFB. CD4 cell count was determined for all HIV infected subjects using a FACScount.
Results: PCV was significantly lower in all categories of subjects when compared with the control (<0.003). The median PVC level in HIV subjects co-infected with TB though lowest (32.5%) among all categories of subjects the value is not significantly different when compared with the level in subjects with HIV infection only. The prevalence of anemia (13.6%) in HIV infection subjects and subjects co-infected with TB (25%) were not significantly different (P=0.064). Neither was the prevalence of anemia in TB subjects (21.7%) significantly different (p>0.05) from those co infected with HIV.Conclusion: Co-infection of HIV with TB did not worsen anemia in studied subjects.


Keywords: HIV, Tuberculosis, Co-infection, Anemia.

NQJHM Vol. 14 (2) 2004: pp. 115-117