Research Description:

The Impact of Different Factors on Growth of HIV-1 Infected Children

Careful monitoring of changes in height and weight is important in the development and growth of children. In a pediatric HIV population, however, growth and developmental care is much more complex and complicated by disease management of immunological and virological factors as well as adequate height and weight growth becomes important in the overall success of an infected child.

Current observation reveals that HIV infected untreated children are generally plagued by deficits in height and weight growth as compared to normal children of their age. Due to improved medication and greater control of the HIV disease, infected individuals are beginning to experience increases in life expectancy. Impaired growth in children can greatly affect a child mentally as well as physically and may now extend into adulthood.

Several studies have attempted to determine whether an association between growth and virological and immunological factors exist. Up to now, an agreed consensus or an accurate picture about these associations has not been established. In the past, studies examined growth and its effect on viral load and CD4 markers from a medication standpoint. Another approach in determining these associations is to study whether certain parameters of growth, viral load, and CD4 are associated with changes with each other or with other changes such as diet intake, medication, BMI, etc when these certain parameters are independently reached.

For several years, our laboratory has been performing nutrition assessment including anthropometric measurements and bioelectrical impedance analyses on a cohort of HIV positive children as part of their care at Shands outpatient clinic. The data will be statistically analyzed using the approach mention above to determine whether relationships between factors exist.