THYROID FUNCTION TESTS IN NIGERIAN HIV SERO- POSITIVE PATIENTS ON HIGHLY ACTIVE ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY (HAART)

Background: Recent studies suggest that the prevalence of hypothyroidism among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) people who were on treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was higher than that in treatment na？ve HIV infected people and those who were not infected with HIV. Objective: This study was to determine thyroid function test in HIV infected people on various regimen of HAART. Subjects and Methods: A total of 128 participants were randomly recruited for the study. Seventy six were HIV positive on HAART, 24 were HIV positive but treatment-na？ve and HIV negative population was 28. Blood samples were collected from each study group for thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free thyroxine (FT4) and free triiodothyronine (FT3). A chemiluminescence based third generation thyroid assay was used for the analysis of these parameters. Result: Free T3 and fT4 were observed to be significantly lower in HIV positive patients whether on HEART or not than those that were HIV-negative (p>0.001 and p=0.014). Correspondingly, TSH was found to be significantly higher in test groups than normal HIV-negative control, p<0.001. Conclussion: There is no difference in thyroid function test among HIV infected people, whether treatment na？ve or on HAART. However, thyroid hormones (fT3, fT4) was lower in HIV positive patients than HIV-negative controls