Data Collection and Variables
Patients’ characteristics included age, sex, marital status, race,
education, occupation, route of HIV infection, year(s) of confirmed HIV
positive, year(s) when ART and
second-line ART commenced, whether taken CM, CD4+ T cell count, anemia
or not, liver injury or not,
hyperlipidemia or not, year of
death and year of censored were collected.
All the information from standard medical record registers of NFATP and
NCMATP. The laboratory test such as the CD4+ T cell count, Hb, AST, ALT,
TC and TG were the recorded value latest time from the beginning time of
second-line ART in half year, if no value in half year, the variable was
missing. Hyperlipidemia was defined as serum total cholesterol (TC)
>6.20 mmol/L and/or serum triglyceride (TG)
>2.30 mmol/L [17]. Common clinical criteria were
adopted for liver injury, that is, AST/ALT≥50 u/L, which was defined as
liver injury[18]. Hemoglobin (Hb) <120g/L in adult males
and Hb<110g/L in adult females, which was defined as anemia
[19].