IARDINO R.

The Italian health system is organised on a regional basis and services are provided by both public and private operators, affecting the planning of services, access to services by citizens and their health rights. The creation of an observatory monitoring the methods and times of access to healthcare services has been pursued. The preliminary...

Background: Social determinants are known to be a driving force of health inequalities, even in high income countries. Aim of our study was to determine if these factors can limit antiretroviral therapy (ART) access, outcome and retention in care of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Italy. Methods: All ART naïve HIV+ patients (pts) of Italian...

Objectives: Tropism evolution of HIV-1 quasispecies was analysed by ultra-deep pyrosequencing (UDPS) in patients on first-line combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) always suppressed or experiencing virological failure episodes. Methods: Among ICONA patients, two groups of 20 patients on cART for ≥5 years, matched for baseline viraemia and...

Objectives: Our aim was to investigate the durability of different initial regimens in patients starting ART with CD4+ counts <200 cells/mm3 and HIV-RNA >5 log10 copies/mL. Methods: This was a retrospective study of HIV-infected patients prospectively followed in the ICONA cohort. Those who started ART with boosted protease inhibitors (bPIs),...

Objective To estimate the incidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) seroconversion and the risk of severe fibrosis/cirrhosis in HCV seroconverters among persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Methods We analysed data on 4059 persons with HIV enrolled in a cohort study in Italy. Results Incidence rate of seroconversion was 0.6/100...

Objective: To analyze the association between chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections with type 2 diabetes in HIV-infected patients. Methods: HIV-1-infected patients enrolled in ICONA, a prospective cohort study involving 42 tertiary care centers in Italy, were selected with the following characteristics: for the...