Fractures Stratified by HIV and Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Status

This study uses data from the Integrated Health Care Information Services (IHCIS) National Managed Care Benchmarked Database, a health insurance claims database. The study has two analytic components. The first is a retrospective cohort study comparing subjects without HIV infection to subjects with HIV infection for the incidence of and risk for fracture, including the use of anyARV drugs in persons with HIV infection. The second is a nested case-control study limited to persons with HIV infectiion within the cohort. Cases are those with incident fractures occurring after the diagnosis of HIV infection, and controls those without a fracture. Cases and controls will be compared for risk factors for incident fracture including ARV drug exposure. The drug exposures will include individual nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) (as permitted by sample size) and the other ARV drug classes.

ViiV Healthcare is the new sponsor of this study, and GlaxoSmithKline is in the process of updating systems to reflect the change in sponsorship.

Inclusion criteria

• The inclusion criteria was continuous enrollment for at least 12 months in the Integrated Health Care Information Services (IHCIS) National Managed Care Benchmarked Database during the interval between January 1, 1997 and March 31, 2008, age 18 years of age and older, and continuous eligibility for pharmacy benefits during IHCIS enrollment.

Exclusion criteria

• Exclusion criteria were membership in the Integrated Health Care Information Services (IHCIS) National Managed Care Benchmarked Database without a valid gender or age record, less than 12 months continuous enrolment, and member residence in the 'national' census region. This latter grouping represented members who were either not living in the continental US or were masked for confidentiality reasons based on IHCIS archiving of data per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.