Life expectancy for HIV patients rises by 15 years

PATIENTS infected with HIV can now expect to live 15 years longer than they would have over a decade ago thanks to better treatments, experts have said.

Researchers said that over the past 13 years, earlier diagnosis and improvements in antiretroviral treatments had dramatically improved patients’ outlook. But they said HIV patients still had a lower life expectancy than the general population.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, the Bristol University researchers said HIV infection had become a chronic disease with a good prognosis if treatment began early enough and the patient stuck to their treatment.

Dr Margaret May and her colleagues used data from the UK Collaborative HIV Cohort study, which in 2001 began collating routine data on HIV positive people who had been attending some of the UK’s largest clinical centres since January 1996.

Their analysis showed that life expectancy for an average 20-year-old infected with HIV increased from 30 years to almost 46 between the periods of 1996-99 and 2006-8.

The researchers concluded: “Life expectancy in the HIV-positive population has significantly improved in the UK.” .