If that link sounds tendentious, or even arrogant, then the American professors have no end of smart studies to back it up.
In the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) study, increased levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6 (IL-6) and of D-dimer, a marker of fibrinolysis, predicted all-cause mortality in persons with treated HIV infection, and impaired liver function among hepatitis co-infected patients [7], [8].
Results from the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) study showed that rates of hepatic disease were significantly higher among HIV-infected patients who interrupted ART compared with those who maintained it [ 29].
In the multicenter SMART study (Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy) where 88% of the 292 subjects had undetectable plasma HIV RNA levels, prior cardiovascular disease, hypercholesterolemia, and hypertension were associated with poorer cognitive performance [ 54].
In contrast with the DAD study, the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) study found no associations between rate of cardiovascular disease and cumulative or recent use of NRTIs (zidovudine, stavudine, or lamivudine).
37 Of note is that the SMART study population had a high rate of cardiac risk factors at baseline, with 39% of participants being current smokers, 36% having ischemic changes on their baseline electrocardiograms, 19% taking antihypertensive agents, and 18% being on lipid-lowering drugs.
The relative roles of viral infection and its treatment in the genesis of cardiovascular disease in HIV infection were illustrated by the results of the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) study.
Initial concerns about long-term safety and reports of a lack of improved virological response in trials of structured interruptions [ 32, 33] were confirmed by the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) study, which found that CD4-guided episodic therapy increases the risk of opportunistic disease or death in relation to continuous treatment [ 34].
The study cohort consists of patients participating in the Second Manifestations of ARTerial disease (SMART) study, an ongoing prospective single-centre cohort study in patients with manifest arterial disease or cardiovascular risk factors at the University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU) which started in September 1996 [ 28].
In this study, we used data from patients enrolled in the Second Manifestations of Arterial disease (SMART) study.
