HIV and stroke

The association between HIV infection and coronary heart disease and haemorrhagic stroke has already been described1–3 but less is known about ischaemic stroke. Sico et al4 looked at the risk factors for ischaemic stroke in HIV+ individuals as part of the Veterans Administration Cohort Study, a study of clinical and laboratory data sets collected from 99 688 US veterans. They compared HIV+ patients with HIV– controls matched for age, sex race/ethnicity and clinical site over a 6-year period from 2003 to 2009, and after women and those with baseline cardiovascular disease (CVD) or stroke were excluded, data from 76 835 men were analysed. In total, 910 ischaemic stroke events were seen (34% of those being in HIV-infected individuals), and ischaemic stroke rates (per 1000 person-years) were higher in HIV+ men (2.79 vs 2.24) with a 25% increase in stroke incidence over their negative counterparts (p<0.01). After adjusting for risk factors and comorbid diseases, the risk of ischaemic stroke was higher in the …