Objective: To provide survival estimates of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) after treatment with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in rural China, to identify the prognostic factors at enrollment, and to explore the effectiveness ofTCM in treating PLHIV.
Methods: PLHIV who enrolled in national TCM HIV treatment trial program in October 2004 were analyzed in this study and followed up to October 2010. Survival time was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier curve and hazard ratios, and identifying prognostic factors were computed through Cox proportional hazard models.
Results: A total of 1666 PLHIV were included with 102 591 person-months of follow-up. Overall, 312 (18.7%) patients died. The total mortality rate over the study period was 3.6 per 100 person-years, which was lower than the worldwide rate. The cumulative survival rate was 95.9% at 1 year [95% confidence interval (CI) (94.8-96.8)] and 80.4% at 6 years [95% CI (78.4-82.3)]. Elevated death risks emerged among males, older individuals, and those with lower CD4+ T-cell counts.
Conclusion: TCM could increase survival and lengthen the life span of PLHIV in Henan province of China, as shown by our retrospective cohort study. Factors such as sex, age, education, and CD4+ T-cell counts correlated to survival. However, retrospective cohorts bias the data, so more prospective studies should be performed to confirm our primary results.