High prevalence of baseline Non-R5 viral tropism in PLWH is associated with immune damage: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Abstract
Objective
This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to characterize the distribution of HIV-1 viral tropism at diagnosis among people living with HIV (PLWH) and examine its association with baseline CD4+ T lymphocyte counts, thereby providing an evidence base for optimizing clinical interventions.
Method
Observational studies reporting viral tropism prevalence and/or baseline CD4+ T cell counts stratified by tropism were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library. A random-effects model was employed for pooled prevalence estimation and mean difference calculation. Heterogeneity was quantified using I² statistics, with subgroup analyses and sensitivity tests to identify heterogeneity sources.
Results
27 articles (N = 9372) were included in this study to analyze the distribution of viral tropism, and the prevalence of Non-R5 tropism was 15.68%. Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of Non-R5 IDU (27.86%) was significantly higher than that of sexual transmission (15.29%) and other routes (4.62%). The prevalence of Non-R5 tropism in the CRF01_AE subtype group (30.02%) was significantly higher than that of the B subtype (15.33%) and other subtypes (3.44%) (P ≤ 0.05). A comparison of CD4+ T cell counts (17 articles) showed a difference of −97.77 cells/μL for the Non-R5 tropic group relative to the R5 group.
Conclusion
Our study find that PLWH with Non-R5 virus had more severe immune damage at diagnosis compared to PLWH with R5 virus. This can update the baseline status of patients in clinical practice. since this is a cross-sectional study, future cohort studies should be conducted to verify the relationship between tropism and changes in immunological indicators.
Authors
Liu Y, Yuan D, Yin Y, He Q, Zhao M, Ma H, Wei P, Ge Y
Year
2025
Topics
- Population(s)
- General HIV+ population
- Other
