AbstractIntroductionViral load suppression and adherence to combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) have been shown to be lower in adolescents than in other age groups; however, this relationship has not been documented longitudinally from childhood to adolescence and has rarely been examined outside of high-resource settings and sub-Saharan Africa. To address this knowledge gap, we quantified longitudinal changes in CD4 cell count, viral load suppression, and cART adherence in adolescents

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... with HIV in urban, Peru.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective chart review among adolescents ages 10-18 years on cART and receiving care at a large, public sector pediatric hospital as of December 2015. We abstracted clinical notes indicating nonadherence and viral load and CD4 counts from childhood to adolescence. We modeled the association between age and each outcome with restricted cubic splines accounting for multiple observations per person, and graphed study outcomes by age.ResultsA median of 7.7 years (25th percentile=4.9, 75th percentile=10.2) of follow up were observed for 128 adolescents. Nearly 70% of patients had at least one nonadherence note and the proportion with nonadherence increased log-linearly with age (p<0.0001). The peak proportion with viral load suppression was 84% (95% CI: 79, 88) at age 13, which dropped to 67% (95% CI: 47, 83) by age 18. Mean CD4 count decreased at age 13, dropping from 723 cells/mm3 (95% CI: 666, 784) to 429 cells/mm3 (95% CI: 356, 517) by age 18.ConclusionThis is the first report from Latin America to examine longitudinal changes in HIV outcomes from childhood into adolescence. Consistent with the limited evidence from other settings, decreases in viral load suppression and mean CD4 count occurred in early adolescence in tandem with increases in nonadherence. Adolescent-friendly cART adherence support interventions to target this critical period are urgently needed.