Background: Some of the most frequent manifestations of heart involvement in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection include right and left ventricular dysfunction. The pathogenesis remains obscure.
Methods and results: This prospective clinical and echocardiographic study involved 181 patients at all stages of HIV infection. We tested a set of clinical variables using a backward logistic regression model to assess their ability to independently predict the presence of ventricular dysfunction. The presence of pulmonary infections (all etiologies mixed) was the only variable independently associated with isolated right ventricular dysfunction (odds ratio = 4.08; P = .02). Signs suggestive of pulmonary arterial hypertension were present in 71% of the patients with right ventricular dilation. History of previous opportunistic infections (all etiologies mixed) (odds ratio = 10.9; P = .0026) and time since the diagnosis of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome more than 12 months (odds ratio = 6.6; P = .03) were the only two independent predictors of left ventricular dysfunction.
Conclusions: Isolated right ventricular dysfunction may be secondary to pulmonary hypertension caused by repetitive pulmonary infections and not to primary myocardial disease. The aggressive treatment of opportunistic infections may become an important element of heart failure prophylaxis in HIV infection because they may be associated with left ventricular dysfunction.