Research Article Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Lipoatrophy in Patients with HIV Infection in Nigeria

Copyright © 2015 Sandra Omozehio Iwuala et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Although the association between lipoatrophy and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is well known, other nondrug factorsmay be associated with lipoatrophy in people living withHIV/AIDS (PLWHA).There are no reports of lipoatrophy from Nigeria, a country with the second largest number of PLWHA. We aimed to determine the prevalence, characteristics, and factors associated with lipoatrophy in a cohort of patients attending the HIV clinic in Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria. Methods. Two hundred and eighty-eight patients with HIV infection were recruited for the study. The study protocol involved administration of a questionnaire, targeted physical examination (including anthropometric indices and skin fold thickness), and bioelectrical impedance analysis measurements. Lipoatrophy was defined clinically. Results. Lipoatrophy was present in 75 (26.0%) persons. It was associated with lower body circumferences, skin fold thicknesses, and lower % body fat with preservation of skeletal muscle mass (al