Complications of long-term antiretroviral therapy in HIV-infected children

摘要

Advances in antiretroviral therapy (ART) over the past 20 years have transformed HIV from a palliative to a chronic disease. In developed countries, mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV is now rare and current cohorts of perinatally infected children and adolescents have grown up on long-term ART. In sub-Saharan Africa, where there is ongoing MTCT, many newly infected children continue to be started on treatment early in life, and there is an expanding cohort of children who will spend the majority of childhood and adolescence on ART. As more children globally spend longer on ART, morbidity and mortality will continue to decrease, but there is a need to consider the long-term toxicity of starting lifelong treatment in the first years of life.