HIV patients sicker when seeking therapy

BALTIMORE, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- A Baltimore study found that from 1990 to 2006, HIV patients beginning therapy have trended toward increasing levels of immunocompromise.

Jeanne Keruly and Dr. Richard Moore of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine analyzed data from more than 3,300 patients seeking HIV care from the Johns Hopkins HIV service.

They looked at the amount of time between a patient’s diagnosis of HIV and the time when that person first sought care, and the patient’s immune status.

For all men, the average length between diagnosis and presentation for care was 270 days at the beginning of the study, falling to 183 days by the end. Women’s times to seek treatment stayed fairly constant, but injection drug users had a dramatic increase -- from an average of 378 days from diagnosis to care at the beginning of the study to 630 days at the conclusion.

The study, published in the Nov. 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, found people in several key demographic groups are not any quicker now to seek care than they were in the past and some even take longer.