Much of the increased mortality seen in
patients with HIV can be attributed to smoking, Danish investigators report in
the online edition of Clinical Infectious
Diseases. “The loss of life-years associated with smoking was larger than
that associated with HIV,” write the investigators. The authors believe their
findings have important implications for HIV care, showing the importance of smoking
cessation counselling and support.
Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, the
prognosis for many people living with HIV is now excellent. Rates of HIV-related
illnesses and deaths have fallen dramatically since the mid 1990s, meaning that
lifestyle-related factors are now a major cause of morbidity and mortality in people living with HIV.
A number of studies have shown that people with HIV are more likely to smoke than their HIV-negative peers. Illnesses that
are potentially related to smoking, such as cardiovascular disease and cancers,
are being seen with increased frequency in people with HIV. The role of
smoking and other potentially modifiable risk factors is currently unclear.
Investigators from Denmark therefore
designed a study to evaluate the effect of smoking on mortality among people
with HIV in a setting where treatment is freely available. They also compared the risk of death and loss of life-years
associated with smoking with the risk associated with HIV-related factors.
The study population involved 2921 adults
who received HIV care in Denmark between 1995 and 2010. Injecting drug users were excluded
from participation. The people with HIV were matched with 10,642
Both the people with HIV and the controls were
followed for a median of four years.
Among HIV-positive patients, 47% were
current smokers, 18% were former smokers and 35% had never smoked. The
corresponding rates for the controls were 21%, 33% and 47%.
The excess mortality rate for HIV-positive
current smokers (compared to HIV-positive patients who had never smoked) was 18
per 1000 patient years. The corresponding rate for the HIV-negative controls
was 5 per 1000 patient years.
The risk of non-HIV-related death was
five-fold higher for current smokers compared to HIV-infected patients who had
never smoked. HIV-positive patients who were current smokers also had a
fourfold increase in their risk of all-cause mortality.
The risk of death due to cardiovascular
disease was approximately two times higher for HIV-positive current smokers compared
to HIV-positive non-smokers. Current smokers were also three times more likely
to die of cancer.
Smoking had a significant impact on the
life expectancy of HIV-positive patients.
The authors calculated that 35-year-old
non-smokers had a life expectancy of 78 years. This compared to a life
expectancy of 69 years for former smokers, and a life expectancy of just 63
years for current smokers.
“Our finding of lower mortality among
previous compared to current smokers emphasizes the importance of counseling
HIV patients on smoking cessation,” comment the researchers.
They calculated that the HIV-positive
patients lost five years of life expectancy due to their HIV infection and that
twelve life years were lost because of smoking.
“The loss of life-years associated with
smoking was larger than that associated with HIV,” write the investigators.
“HIV-infected smokers with long-term engagement in care lose more life-years to
smoking than HIV.”