echocardiographic assessment of systolic pulmonary arterial pressure in hiv-positive patients.

pulmonary hypertension is rare but is one of the complications that occur due to hiv infection. symptoms of hiv-associated pulmonary arterial hypertension are often non-specific but the main symptom of the disease is dyspnea. in this cross-sectional study, we measured systolic pulmonary arterial pressure (spap) by echocardiographic methods among hiv-positive patients who received art. this research is a descriptive, cross-sectional study of 170 hiv-positive patients that was conducted in imam-khomeini hospital, tehran, iran during 2011-2013. all patients regularly received antiretroviral therapy at least for recent 2 years. there were not any cardiopulmonary symptoms (cough, dyspnea, exertional fatigue and chest discomfort) in these patients. all participants underwent echocardiography to estimate spap. the participants comprised 108 males (63.5%) and 62 females (46.5%). the mean age of patients was 41 years old, and the mean duration of hiv infection was 5.5 years. the mean cd4 cell count was 401 cell/µl. the principal regimen of antiretroviral therapy included two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (nrti) and one non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (nnrti) in the hospital. the mean of systolic pulmonary arterial pressure was 25 mmhg in the participants; 156 (93.4%) of them had spap ≤ 30 mmhg (normal), six (3.6%) had spap: 31-35 mmhg (borderline) and five (3%) had spap > 35 mmhg (pulmonary hypertension). our results indicated a significant increase of pulmonary hypertension in asymptomatic hiv-positive patients that had no association with any other risk factor. also, antiretroviral therapy was not a risk factor for pulmonary hypertension in this study.