A glimmer of hope? Evaluation of time for non-genitourinary medicine physicians to diagnose HIV infection in patients presenting with HIV-related illness

Abstract

Summary

A study conducted in 2002–2003 at three UK south coast hospitals measuring the length of time for non-genitourinary medicine physicians to diagnose HIV when patients presented with an HIV-related illness, found a median time to diagnosis of four days with 70% of diagnoses being made within seven days. This retrospective cohort study of all patients newly diagnosed with HIV between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2011 was conducted at the same three hospitals. Thirty-seven patients were newly diagnosed with HIV in non-genitourinary (GU) medicine inpatient and outpatient settings (24 men, 13 women), with a mean age of 43 years. The median time to diagnosis was one day (interquartile range of 0–4 days), with 81% of diagnoses made within seven days of first presentation. Late diagnosis of HIV remains a significant challenge, but delayed diagnosis in a patient admitted with an HIV-related illness is reducing in this setting.

Keywords

HIV AIDS diagnosis late presenters time to diagnosis United Kingdom

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, Medical Foundation for AIDS and Sexual Health. Standards for the Management of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). 2010. See www.bashh.org (last checked 23 January 2012)

Health Protection Agency. United Kingdom New HIV Diagnoses to end of December 2011. See http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1237970242135 (last checked 23 January 2012)

British HIV Association. BHIVA National Clinical Audit of HIV Diagnosis. 2003. See http://bhiva.org/documents/ClinicalAudit/FindingsandReports/newdiag_preliminary_results.ppt (last checked 23 January 2012)

Lee

Foley

Patel

. Evaluation of time for non-GU medicine physicians to diagnose HIV infection in patients presenting with HIV-related illnesses. Int J STD AIDS 2006;17:97–8

British HIV Association, British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, British Infection Society. UK National Guidelines for HIV Testing. 2008. See http://www.bhiva.org/documents/Guidelines/Testing/GlinesHIVTest08.pdf (last checked 18 December 2012)