Growth in virologically suppressed HIV-positive children on antiretroviral therapy: Individual and population-level references
Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, Volume 34, No. 10, Year 2015
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Background: Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) suppresses viral replication in HIV-infected children. The growth of virologically suppressed children on ART has not been well documented. We aimed to develop dynamic reference curves for weight-for-age Z scores (WAZ) and heightfor-age Z scores (HAZ). Methods: Children aged <11 years at ART initiation with continuously undetectable viral loads (<400 copies/mL) treated at 7 South African ART programs with routine viral load monitoring were included. We used multilevel models to define trajectories of WAZ and HAZ up to 3 years and developed a web application to monitor trajectories in individual children. Results: A total of 4876 children were followed for 7407 person-years. Analyses were stratified by baseline Z scores and age, which were the most important predictors of growth response. The youngest children showed the most pronounced increase in weight and height initially but catch-up growth stagnated after 1-2 years. Three years after starting ART, WAZ ranged from-2.2 [95% prediction interval (PrI),-5.6 to 0.8] in children with baseline age >5 years and Z score less than-3 to 0.0 (95% PrI,-2.7 to 2.4) in children with baseline age <2 years and WAZ greater than-1. For HAZ, the corresponding range was-2.3 (95% PrI,-4.9 to 0.3) in children with baseline age >5 years and Z score less than-3 to 0.3 (95% PrI,-3.1 to 3.4) in children with baseline age 2-5 years and HAZ greater than-1. Conclusions: We have developed an online tool to calculate reference trajectories in fully suppressed children. The web application could help to define "optimal" growth response and identify children with treatment failure.