Significant amounts of atherosclerotic plaque have been found in the coronary arteries of people with HIV, even in those considered by traditional measures to be at low-to-moderate risk of future heart disease, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
This finding emerged from the global REPRIEVE (Randomized Trial to Prevent Vascular Events in HIV) study, in which Harvard Medical School researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital are playing a key coordinating role.
Researchers found that the higher-than-expected levels of plaque could not be attributed simply to traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors like smoking, hypertension, and lipids in the blood, but were independently related to increased arterial inflammation and immune system activation.
