Effects of direct-acting antiviral treatment on reducing mortality among Medicare beneficiaries with HIV and HCV coinfection.

MEDICARE; HIV infections; DISEASE progression; CONFIDENCE intervals; MORTALITY; ANTIVIRAL agents; HEPATITIS C; REGRESSION analysis; MIXED infections; PROPORTIONAL hazards models

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is common among people living with HIV. HIV and HCV coinfected patients have higher overall mortality rates compared with HIV mono-infected patients. With its high cure rate of HCV infection, direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment provides an opportunity to improve the survival of the HIV/HCV coinfected population. The objective of this study is to investigate the association between DAA treatment and all-cause mortality among HIV/HCV coinfected people. The study included 7103 Medicare beneficiaries in the United States who were infected with both HIV and HCV between 2014 and 2017. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) of death for patients with and without DAA treatment while controlling for patient characteristics. During the study period, 1675 patients initiated DAA treatment (23.6%). The adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of all-cause mortality between patients with and without DAA treatment was 0.37 (95% CI, 0.29–0.48), regardless of cirrhosis status. DAA treatment was associated with a smaller reduction in all-cause mortality for females (aHR, 0.50 [95% CI, 0.30–0.85]) compared with males (aHR, 0.34 [95% CI, 0.25–0.46]). DAA treatment was associated with improved survival among all HIV/HCV coinfected patients regardless of sex or HCV disease progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of AIDS Care is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)