Symptomatic human immunodeficiency virus infection is associated with advanced presentation and perioperative mortality in patients undergoing surgery for peripheral arterial disease

Objective: Prior studies have demonstrated an increased risk of developing cardiovascular and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). However, the effect of chronic HIV infection in patients with preexisting PAD and requiring vascular intervention is unclear. In the present study, we assessed the differences in clinical presentation and perioperative outcomes for patients with PAD who had undergone revascularization or amputation with and without HIV infection.

Methods: International Classification of Diseases, 9th and 10th Revisions, Clinical Modification, codes were used to identify patients with a prior diagnosis of PAD who had undergone lower extremity revascularization or amputation in the National Inpatient Sample (2003-2017). From this group, the patients were divided for analysis into those with and without HIV infection. Of the patients with HIV infection (PWHs), we identified additional subsets of patients: those with any prior or current diagnosis of an HIV-related illness, including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, designated as symptomatic HIV, and those without such a diagnosis, designated as asymptomatic HIV infection. Propensity score matching was performed to create matched cohorts. Population-based comparative analyses were performed of the clinical characteristics of the HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected groups. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses of the perioperative in-hospital outcomes were performed on the matched cohorts.

Results: A total of 224,912 patients aged 18 to 85 years were identified who had been admitted with an established diagnosis of PAD and had undergone a lower extremity procedure. Of these patients, 1264 (0.56%) also had a diagnosis of HIV infection. Symptomatic PWHs were more likely to present with critical limb ischemia than were the HIV-uninfected patients or asymptomatic PWHs (66.2% vs 46.3% and 43.6%; P < .01). However, both asymptomatic and symptomatic PWHs were more likely to have required minor (7.5% and 6.7% vs 2.6%; P < .01) and major (12.9% and 27.4% vs 7.0%; P < .01) amputations than were matched HIV-uninfected controls. Although adjusted multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated symptomatic HIV infection to be a significant, independent predictor of in-hospital mortality (odds ratio, 2.46; 95% confidence interval, 1.37-4.40; P = .003), the perioperative mortality for the asymptomatic PWH was comparable to that of matched HIV-uninfected controls.

Conclusions: Symptomatic PWHs, including patients living with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, who had required a PAD-related procedure had presented with more advanced vascular disease and were most at risk of early perioperative mortality. However, the presentation and mortality between asymptomatic PWHs with well-controlled disease and HIV-uninfected patients were comparable. All PWHs with PAD were more likely to undergo lower extremity amputations than were HIV-uninfected matched controls. Asymptomatic, well-controlled HIV infection should not be a contraindication to elective PAD-related procedures because the mortality was similar to that of HIV-uninfected controls. However, the limb salvage rates might be lower for all PWHs with PAD, regardless of HIV disease severity. Taken together, these findings can improve perioperative risk stratification and surgical management of PAD in this high-risk population.