Dr Milena Murray: The Comorbidity Process Is Accelerated in People Living With HIV

With age comes a greater comorbidity burden, and this process in people living with HIV might necessitate earlier screenings compared with people not living with HIV, noted Milena Murray, PharmD, MSc, BCIDP, AAHIVP, associate professor at Midwestern University College of Pharmacy who practices at Northwestern Medicine's Infectious Disease Center in Chicago.

Transcript

What are the top primary care issues among individuals living with HIV as they age?

I really see a lot of comorbidities and a lot of primary care. So a lot of hyperlipidemia management, diabetes management; hypertension is a very big prevalence. And as patients age, they usually have more comorbidities and more things that they are looking to treat. And so we know this process is also accelerated in patients living with HIV and that they might need screenings typically earlier than a patient not living with HIV.

In this population, I really love to mitigate those drug-drug interactions with all the comedications. That's a big role for pharmacists, as well as family planning over the course of lives and just making sure that patients’ wishes for family planning are known as well, because that can impact which medications we might be using to not only treat the HIV but to treat comorbid conditions.