Pre-eclampsia: does cardiac function differ in HIV-positive and -negative women?

This review aimed to establish the impact of pre-eclampsia and HIV infection on cardiac function. Cardiovascular diseases have been reported to affect pregnancies complicated by both HIV and pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia has been found to be associated with both systolic and diastolic dysfunction. Currently it has been found that there may be a dual, bidirectional pathophysiology, where placenta-mediated factors can influence cardiac function, or pre-existing cardiovascular disease can predispose to pre-eclampsia. Cardiovascular disease, HIV and pre-eclampsia are major health challenges individually and are interrelated with regard to pathophysiology. It has been found that both pre-eclampsia and HIV contribute to cardiac dysfunction as does the impact of antiretroviral therapy. Further research is needed to investigate the link between these diseases for the development of novel therapeutic interventions.