Social characteristics of HIV patients with suppurative diseases of the lungs and pleura and their effect on the disease outcome

Abstract

The objective: to study the influence of certain social factors on treatment results of suppurative diseases of the lungs and pleura in HIV positive patients.

Subjects and methods: 232 HIV positive patients with suppurative diseases of the lungs and pleura (the mean age made 36.9 ± 7.2 years) who were admitted to the clinic to have treatment. Various surgical interventions were performed in 171 (74%) patients, 10 (5.8%) had postoperative complications. Based on the outcome of suppurative disease, 232 patients were divided as follows: 42 (18.1%) - clinical cure with no X-ray signs in the lungs, 100 (43.1%) - clinical cure with residual changes in the lungs, 55 (23.7%) - improvement, 9 (3.9% ) - no changes. 26 (11.2%) patients died, of them 24 (10.3%) died due to systemic complications, 2 (0.9%) - due to pulmonary/intrapleural hemorrhage.

In the patients, relationships between the manifestations and outcomes of the suppurative disease (pulmonary suppuration, pleural empyema, development of complications, fatal outcome) were studied considering each of 9 factors and using Spearman's rank correlation: age, education, employment status, marital status, tobacco smoking, drug abuse, alcohol addiction, the way of infecting with HIV, and in-take of ART. Only the inverse weak correlation was revealed between the level of education and fatal outcome (patients with higher education died less often), as well as employment and development of pleural empyema (in those employed, pleural empyema was less common).