Rheumatologists Treating Patients with HIV Face Treatment, Diagnostic Challenges

Dr. Adebajo notes, “I would hope that existing rheumatology registries in different countries would be interested in looking at their patients who are HIV positive and collect information about them. In the long term, we need to actually develop registries to look specifically at HIV-positive patients with arthritis.”

Dr. Walker-Bone also suggests, “It would be good to explore the safety and efficacy of some of the more unusual analgesics (e.g., opiates and gabapentinoids) in HIV-infected patients taking cART.”

Currently, around 37 million individuals are living worldwide with HIV.²² As this population ages, more and more patients who are HIV positive will inevitably develop rheumatic disease, and the process of treating HIV will not become less pharmacologically complex any time soon. Rheumatologists will need to become comfortable treating these patients working in tandem with infectious disease doctors and other healthcare providers.

Ruth Jessen Hickman, MD, is a graduate of the Indiana University School of Medicine. She is a freelance medical and science writer living in Bloomington, Ind.

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