Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has been associated with both infectious and noninfectious complications. With the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and specific chemoprophylactic drugs, prolonged survival has allowed noninfectious complications of HIV to gain greater recognition and attention. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), resulting from chronic obstruction of small pulmonary arteries, is one of these complications. Since the first reported case of PAH associated with HIV infection (PAH-HIV) (1), it has been established that HIV infection is one independent risk factor for development of PAH (2,3).