Ethical considerations
The current study is a secondary analysis of data collected in healthy controls in the HIV associated ascending aortic aneurysm: clinical features and natural history (M170389). The study was approved by the University of the Witwatersrand ethics committee and conforms to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Permission to use data from the parent study was obtained. The current study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand (clearance certificate number: M 200822.). Permission to retrieve and utilize the data was also obtained from Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital management.