Cervical lipomatosis in HIV-infected patients: a case-control study.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study was to analyse the prevalence of cervical lipomatosis (CL) in HIV-infected patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and the factors associated with its development.

METHODS

This was a multicentre, observational, 1:1 case-control study. HIV-infected patients with CL (cases) and HIV-infected patients from the same cohort, controlled for age (+/-5 years), sex and body mass index (+/-2.5 kg/m(2)) (controls), were included in the study, and a multiple conditional logistic regression was performed to identify factors related to CL.

RESULTS

CL was reported in 80 patients (1.8%) from a cohort of 4214 patients on HAART followed up in 10 Spanish hospitals. CL was associated with time of exposure to stavudine [for each 6-month increase, odds ratio (OR) 5.82, 95% confidence interval (CI) 5.70-5.94, P=0.0073] and lipoatrophy (OR 8.04, 95% CI 2.93-22.02, P=0.00001).

CONCLUSIONS

Although lipodystrophy is very frequent among HIV-infected patients on HAART, CL is an uncommon type of fat redistribution in this population, and in our cohort it was related to time of exposure to stavudine and lipoatrophy.