Bone Involvement in Antiretroviral-Therapy–Naïve HIV-Infected Young Men

Background: Low bone mineral density has been described as a non–AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)-related event in HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)-patients but it is poorly studied in young HIV-infected men who have received no previous antiretroviral therapy. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 245 naïve-HIV-infected men over 21 and under 50 years old was carried out between January 2014 and September 2017. Results: The mean age was 36.4 years, been 68% Caucasian and 29.3% Latin American. At the time of diagnosis, 91% of patients had stage-A (median CD4+ T-cell 481cells/μL, IQR, 320–659). 10% had a count below 200 CD4 cells/μL, and 40% had a CD4/CD8 cell-count-ratio below 0.4. Regarding lifestyle and risk factors, 14.1% presented underweight, 36.1% engaged in no regular exercise, 51.9% had previous exposure to tobacco and 35.3% reported drug use. Low levels of vitamin D were seen in 87.6% of the men studied. Low BMD (Z-score<2.0) was found in 22,8% of the patients. Conclusions: We find prevalence of bone involvement among naïve HIV-infected men under 50 years old. Further studies are necessary to evaluate if BMD assessment should be recommended in young HIV-infected patients.