Over the past two decades with the advent of HAART (Highly active anti-retroviral therapy), there is a substantial increase in the life span of HIV patients. Hence the focus has now shifted to managing long term complications of HIV infection, predicting disease progression and improving quality of life of HIV patients, especially in developed countries. On the other hand, in developing countries the ever growing incidence of HIV infection has placed a huge burden on their frail economy. Hence there is a growing need for simplifying HIV treatment protocols and for having cheaper alternatives for monitoring disease activity.

High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) has been touted as a potential solution for both these problems. First, hsCRP is considered to be a potential biomarker for predicting long term disease progression and CVD risk, which is one of the major long term complications in HIV patients. Secondly, it is also considered to be a marker for predicting mortality and as a tool for routine monitoring of disease activity with a potential to replace traditional costlier measures like CD4 count and HIV RNA load etc.

For related researches: https://www.omicsonline.org/ArchiveBLM/currentissue-biology-and-medicine-open-access.php

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