2004 Volume 114 Issue 4 Pages 839-841
Highly Active Antiviral Therapy (HAART), involving the concurrent administration or three or more antiviral agents, is among the methods currently used to treat HIV-positive patients. In the present report, we examine the incidence of skin conditions seen in some 205 patients who underwent HAART between the years of 1996 and 2002 at Tokyo Medical University Hospital. The individual components of HAART were varied because of the emergence of drug resistant strains of virus. An average of 2.2 doses was administered per patient for a total of 451 sessions. Of the 205 patients, 76 (37.1%) developed skin conditions thought to have been the result of HAART. The total number of occurrences was 109, consisting of maculopapular eruptions (43/451 instances, or 9.5%), eczema (18/451 instances, or 4.0%), acneiform (14/451 instances, or 3.1%), Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (4/451 instances, or 0.9%), ingrown nail (18/451 instances, or 4.0%), and other (12/451 instances, or 2.7%). Although it was clearly established that numerous skin conditions occurred as sideeffects of HAART, we were unable to establish whether all of the conditions identified were the direct results of the drug therapy, owing to the fact that the gravity of the primary illness prohibited experimental manipulation of the drugs or dosages.
