HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

People with HIV who are younger than 50 may be at an increased risk of potentially fatal blood clotting, called venous thrombosis, suggests a study published in the May issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs.

Several case reports have suggested that there may be a relationship between HIV and an increased risk of venous thromboembolism. To test this connection, researchers reviewed the medical records of all patients with either HIV or venous thromboembolism who had been discharged from their hospital from July 1998 through June 1999. The study included 362 patients who were HIV-positive and 244 who had venous thromboembolism.

View our poll archive

As a group, people with HIV were not more likely to have a blood clot. The rate of venous thromboembolism was 2.8 percent among HIV-positive patients and 1.8 percent among negative ones, a statistically insignificant difference. But when the analysis was limited to people younger than 50, HIV-positive individuals were significantly more likely to have deep-vein clots, the researchers report. In fact, 22 percent of patients younger than 50 who had venous thromboembolism were also HIV-positive.

That younger HIV patients were more likely to have deep-vein clots is surprising, note the authors, since in the general population such clots tend to occur more frequently among older people.

Editor's Note: from Reuters Health