Background and objective: Our goal was to assess survival changes among AIDS patients in Catalonia.
Patients and method: We analyzed AIDS cases older than 13 years notified in the Catalonian AIDS Registry from January 1981 to December 2001. Sex, age, transmission category, AIDS-defining disease and diagnostic period were included. The survival cumulative risk was computed for each diagnostic period with Kaplan-Meier methods.
Results: During the study period 13,485 AIDS cases were reported. Median survival time was 0.9 years for 1981-1987, 1.7 for 1988-1993 and 2.4 years for 1994-August 1996. The survival time of 75% of patients diagnosed in September 1996-1997 and 1998-2001 was 1.57 and 2.02 years, respectively. Multivariate analyses showed a higher risk among intravenous drug users (hazard ratio = 1.25; 95% confidence interval, 1.17-1.33) than in homo/bisexual men. When we compared heterosexual and homo/bisexual groups, we found that the result was not significant (hazard ratio = 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.92-1.08). The analysis stratified by AIDS-defining disease showed a decrease in the risk of death in most illnesses.
Conclusions: Our results confirm the increase in survival in AIDS cases related to highly active antirretroviral therapy (HAART).