Contrasting Clinical Characteristics in TMI Infections: HIV-Positive Vs. HIV-Negative Individuals

The following is a summary of “Comparison of the clinical features of HIV-positive and HIV-negative hosts infected with Talaromyces marneffei: A multicenter, retrospective study,” published in the July 2023 issue of the Infectious Disease by Qiu et al.

Talaromyces marneffei is an emerging pathogen, and the number of infections in HIV-negative people is rising swiftly. However, there is no sufficient comprehensive report on this issue, and clinicians must be aware of it. From 2018 to 2022, we analyzed the differences between the clinical data of HIV-negative and HIV-positive patients with Talaromyces marneffei infection (TMI). 

There were a total of 848 participants, of whom 104 were HIV-negative. The following were the distinguishing characteristics between the HIV-positive and HIV-negative groups: HIV-negative patients were older and more likely to exhibit cough and rash, the time in days from symptom onset to diagnosis was longer among HIV-negative patients, the laboratory findings and radiological presentations appeared more severe in HIV-negative patients, differences were observed regarding the underlying conditions and co-infection pathogens, and correlation analysis revealed that correlations existed for numerous indicators. 

TMI in HIV-negative patients differs from that in HIV-positive patients in numerous ways, and more research is required. Clinicians should be more aware of TMI in HIV-negative patients.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971223005283