Living with HIV for a Lifetime – It’s Complicated
Speakers:
Dr. Allison Agwu, Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Judith Currier, UCLA, CROI Scientific Program Committee
Moderator:
Dr. Annette Sohn, amfAR, UCSF, CROI Scientific Program Committee
Tuesday 5 March 2024
The second CBC session, moderated by Dr. Annette Sohn, kicked off with Dr. Allison Agwu and Dr. Judith Currier shedding light on what they found to be the most interesting and important topics related to living and ageing with HIV, this CROI 2024.
The session provided a supportive space for community members and audience to ask questions and add their thoughts and opinions of the incoming research. Dr Agwu provided an insight into the new concept of Lifetime Thrivers, clarifying the importance of quality of life over not only living with HIV, but thriving throughout the entire lifetime. Referring to the difference between a lifetime with or without comorbidities – the years of comorbidity-free survival – Dr Agwu then focused on thriving, intended as maximising life and minimising the time you are living with comorbidities that impact your life. In this regard, she referred to interesting research being featured, such as one study looking at links between depressive symptoms and strokes. This study showed depression scores and strokes a nd the association between the two being higher for individuals under the age of 50.
Dr Currier brought the attention to the current research on cervical cancer, the fourth most common type of cancer in women, and that women living with HIV have higher rates of HPV resistance of the virus. Although there is now an effective vaccine, huge barriers to access persist, and the political will to make this a priority is lacking – but severely needed.
At CROI this year, new data were presented on sleep, for example sleep apnoea, as well as cardiovascular disease – as seen in the REPRIEVE study. Attention to these areas shows there is a positive step forward and that looking at more aspects of quality of life is key to have the data that give people choices and enable shared decision-making.
While trials are slowly becoming generally more diverse, there is still a large data gap for cisgender and transgender women, and transgender men. Often, data is not disaggregated as it needs to be, and it is not fully inclusive. We still have a long way to go to be truly representative.
Click here to watch the recording of the session!
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