Temporal trends in ocular manifestations of HIV/AIDS patients in the past 18 years in a tertiary hospital in China.

PURPOSE: To investigate the ocular manifestation changes in human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) patents in a tertiary eye clinic in China over the past 18 years.

METHODS

In this retrospective cross-sectional study, 264 HIV/AIDS patients (528 eyes) were recruited at the Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, from 2001 to 2018. Patients underwent ophthalmic examinations, including best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), slit-lamp microscopy, and indirect ophthalmoscopy, and completed a registration form including demographic characteristics, medical history, and immune status data. Kruskal-Wallis test or Mann-Whitney test was used to compare continuous variables, and Pearson's chi-squared test or Fisher's exact test was performed to compare categorical variables.

RESULTS

Regarding demographic characteristics, there was a significant increasing trend in male patients, sexual transmission, and HIV/AIDS-syphilis coinfection (all P < 0.001). For systemic features, more patients received cART, and fewer patients had systemic syndromes after 2003 (P < 0.001). For ocular manifestations, there were no significant changes between time intervals in CMVR and HIV retinopathy patients (P = 0.149, P = 0.643), but the proportion of patients with uveitis increased from 1.14% to 19.32% (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

CMVR was the most common ocular compilation in HIV/AIDS patients, followed by uveitis and HIV retinopathy. The proportion of patients with CMVR and HIV retinopathy was stable over time, but the proportion of patients with uveitis showed a significant increasing trend. Therefore, immediate ophthalmic examination should be performed at the point of care or as soon as possible after entry into the health care system.