Abstract
Purpose: :
To determine if anti–retroviral treatment change the incidence of dry eye in patients with Human Inmunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Material and Methods.
Methods: :
This is a prospective, comparative, transversal and observacional study of patients with HIV diagnosis, they were received from February 2004 to October 2005. All patients were studied by a complete ocular clinical history, including Mac Monnies questionary (signs and symptoms of dry eye), type of anti–retroviral treatment, time of using. Slit lamp examination, fluorescein staining to identify ocular surface damage, tear break up time. Definition of dry eye was done in patients with symptoms related to dry eye and tear break up time with 10 seconds or under, tear film behavior. Depending on this, we divided patients into 2 groups. Group 1 Dry eye patients and Group 2 No dry eye patients. And we also divided into 5 subgroups depending on what kind of anti–retroviral therapy they were using. Subgroup A: No Treatment, Subgroup B: 3 Nucleoside Analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitor(NRTIs) Subgroup C: 2 NRTIs plus 1 Non Nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitor(NNRTIs). Subgroup D: 2 NRTIs plus 1 Protease inhibitor (PI). Subgroup E : 1 NRTIs plus 1 NNRTIs plus 1 PI.
Results: :
We examined 533 patients with HIV diagnosis, 393 patients were included. The mean of age was 36 years old. We found 37.15% with dry eye and 62.84% with no dry eye. Patients in group 1 and 2 subgroup A showed a lower incidence of dry eye (25%) compared with group 1 and 2 subgroups B, C, D and E was in (40%) p<0.005. Group 1 and 2 subgroup D showed the higher incidence of dry eye 48.78% for group 1 and 51.21% for group 2.
Conclusions: :
The anti–rteroviral therapy increased de incidence of dry eye in patients with HIV specially the combination among 2 NRTIs and 1 PI.
Keywords: AIDS/HIV • cornea: tears/tear film/dry eye • ocular irritancy/toxicity testing