Article Text
Abstract
We aimed to study the prevalence, characteristics and risk factors of asymptomatic sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in HIV-infected men who have sex with men (MSM). We conducted a prospective cross-sectional study, including asymptomatic HIV-infected MSM attending regular visits between December 2014 and December 2017. Of the 301 patients included, 60 patients (19.9%) presented at least one STI. The most common STI was syphilis (33 of 69 STIs), followed by chlamydia (19 of 69), gonorrhoea (10 of 69), hepatitis C virus (4 of 69) and lymphogranuloma venereum (3 of 69). Illicit drug use during sex was the only variable significantly associated with the presence of an STI on multivariate analysis (OR 2.13; 95% CI 1.17–3.89). We were unable to identify a subgroup of patients where we could potentially avoid STI screening. Our findings support current guidelines that recommend routine screening for all HIV-infected MSM regardless of their self-reported sexual history.
- clinical STI care
- screening
- HIV
- men
- cost-effectiveness
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Footnotes
Handling editor Anna Maria Geretti
Contributors RW was responsible for study design, literature search, data collection, analysis, interpretation and manuscript writing. IS was responsible for study conception and design, data collection and interpretation, and manuscript review. LM, JE, JS-P, JN, VF, JB, ER and EC were responsible for data collection and interpretation, and manuscript review. MM was responsible for data analysis and manuscript review. AC was responsible for study conception and design, data collection, analysis, interpretation and manuscript review.
Funding This work has been partially supported by the SPANISH AIDS Research Network RD16/0025/0007 project as part of the Plan Nacional R+D+I and by ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional.
Disclaimer The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The local ethics committee approved the study protocol (number: PR(AG)238/2014), and we obtained written informed consent from all patients.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.