Evaluation of Anti-Retroviral Drugs Effects on Liver Function Tests of HIV Infected Individuals

Abstract

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 35 million lives so far. Antiretroviral therapy, the drug used to treat HIV patients, had been reported to have an adverse effect on patients’ livers. Therefore, this research aims to assess the parameters for measuring liver injury of HIV patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy in Owo and to determine the patients' vulnerability to liver injury. The study sample was divided into five groups comprising Control groups and groups with 6 months, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years’ periods of administration of an antiretroviral drug. Serum was separated from their blood and values of ALT, ALP and BILT were determined. The results of profiling the patients based on values ALT, ALP and BILT indicated that 73%, 71% and 59% of the patients are within the reference range of the parameters, respectively. Further analysis of the percentage of patients likely to have liver diseases indicated that only 3.2% are prone to liver injury. The results of the One-way Analysis of Variance of the mean values of the groups on ALT, ALP and BILT indicated differences in mean values of the groups.  It is suggested that a longitudinal study should be carried out to determine the effect of seasonal variation in the value of the studied parameters. It is also suggested that a wider interval of the period for the groups should be used in the future to determine whether there will be a relationship between the period of administration of the drug and the parameters.